Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz reacts to beating Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime of their males’s singles semi-final tennis match on Court docket Philippe-Chatrier on the Roland-Garros Stadium in the course of the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games, in Paris on August 2, 2024. (Picture by Miguel MEDINA / AFP)
A fired-up Novak Djokovic on Friday reached his first Olympic closing and can face Carlos Alcaraz in a dream showdown for gold in Paris.
Prime seed Djokovic, nonetheless in search of an elusive Olympic title to take a seat alongside his 24 Grand Slams, defeated Lorenzo Musetti 6-4, 6-2 in a nail-biting semi-final throughout which he was handed a code violation for swearing on the chair umpire.
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Alcaraz earlier turned the youngest males’s finalist since tennis returned to the Video games in 1988 when he swept apart Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-1.
Sunday’s title match at Roland Garros would be the pair’s seventh assembly and follows on the heels of Alcaraz defeating the Serbian star within the Wimbledon closing three weeks in the past.
“It was a tense match, there have been numerous expectations and stress within the match. I need the gold however that is already an enormous end result,” stated Djokovic.
“I had misplaced 4 semi-finals so I wished to recover from this hurdle.”
Serbia’s Novak Djokovic falls to the bottom as he reacts to beating Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti throughout their males’s singles semi-final tennis match on Court docket Philippe-Chatrier on the Roland-Garros Stadium in the course of the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games, in Paris on August 2, 2024. (Picture by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP)
The 37-year-old Djokovic, who solely has a bronze medal from 2008 in Beijing to point out for his Olympic efforts, confirmed no signal of the appropriate knee damage he aggravated in Thursday’s quarter-final win over Stefanos Tsitsipas.
He stated Alcaraz, who gained the French Open at Roland Garros in June, would be the favorite on Sunday.
“It is going to be the largest problem, going through him on this court docket,” he stated.
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“He beat me at Wimbledon. However these are completely different circumstances and I really feel I’m a greater participant than at Wimbledon.
“I’ll come out and play my greatest tennis. I’ve nothing to lose so I’ll simply go for it.”
Djokovic’s need to achieve the ultimate boiled over within the second set in opposition to Musetti when he was twice warned for taking too lengthy to serve, then clashed with the umpire, earlier than settling again into his profitable rhythm.
Djokovic wasted 4 break factors within the fourth sport of the opening set earlier than he broke within the tenth sport to safe the benefit.
The primary 4 video games of the second set went in opposition to the server and sandwiched Djokovic’s mini-meltdown.
However the world quantity two broke for 4-2 after which cruised to victory.
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