Goal-setting is hard for someone who's conquered everything the eye can see, but in late 2023, Novak Djokovic did identify one thing that had eluded him. An Olympic gold medal was the most conspicuous gap in his résumé, and his peers had all gotten theirs: Rafael Nadal won singles in 2008, Roger Federer won doubles in 2008, Andy Murray got the singles in 2012 and 2016.
Djokovic's only Olympic medal was a singles bronze from 2008. He wanted to fill that void in Paris, and at the end of last season, that seemed feasible enough. At age 36 he'd just won three of the year's four majors, despite being over a decade older than his most serious threats. The confidence was warranted. But as the 2024 season unfolded, it became much harder to buy into the vision of Djokovic with a gold medal. Rather than a gradual ascent in form to an Olympian peak, his year was a procession of oddities: a disoriented loss on the most successful court of his career, a tetchy defeat by an unproven teenager, the firing of a head coach who'd been on his team for six hugely successful years, big tournaments skipped for personal reasons, an accidental water bottle assault to the head, a meniscus tear followed by a quick rehab, and a listless no-show in a Wimbledon final. The season has been dominated by a pair of his young rivals, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Djokovic admitted in July that he wasn't on their level. The last time he was this deep into a season without a title was 2005.
For the 64-man draw in Paris, Sinner was absent with illness, and Alcaraz was the prohibitive favorite for the gold. Djokovic churned steadily through the draw, not dropping a set. He concluded his 18-year war with Nadal; he beat Stefanos Tsitsipas and Lorenzo Musetti, a pair of one-handed backhand youths that he’d traumatized on these clay courts in the past. Those wins ensured him a medal that would upgrade on his previous bronze, but its precise element would depend on how he fared in Sunday's final against Alcaraz, who had just won back-to-back majors, including one on this particular Roland-Garros clay. Out of nowhere, Djokovic produced the best two sets of tennis he’s played in roughly a year, to beat his much younger rival, 7-6(3), 7-6(2).
From the opening games, it was obvious that the 37-year-old was operating at a vastly superior physical level than his last meeting against Alcaraz, when he limped out of the Wimbledon final in straight sets. As recently as his quarterfinal last Thursday, Djokovic was concerned about his ability to play. It was the knee, again. At the start of the second set against Tsitsipas, he had pain in his right knee that he later described as a “deja vu” of when he tore his meniscus in June. The pain lingered for three or four games, he said, then subsided after a dose of anti-inflammatories. He then looked untroubled in his straightforward semifinal win over Musetti, and by the time he lined up across Alcaraz, it was as though his meniscus had never been an issue. Alcaraz's drop shot is an instant and relentless test of the opponent’s movement abilities, and Djokovic answered it.
Djokovic refused to let Alcaraz dictate the terms of engagement. He was getting himself to net and volleying magnificently upon arrival, no easy feat when the ball is coming off the Alcaraz forehand. Djokovic constructed points with fastidious, subtly aggressive tennis that dared Alcaraz to disrupt the patterns, to break through them with his own inventions. Most of the time, Alcaraz seems to relish that process of invention, but it all looked rather joyless for the 21-year-old through most of this match, give or take the occasional finger pointed to the ear, or the smile through gritted teeth. It’s hard to recall the last time he’s barked at himself or mimed throwing his racquet this many times in the span of just two sets. Even the calmative presence of his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, who was on vacation this week but returned to steady him through the final, wasn’t sufficient to settle him down. Alcaraz said afterward that he felt a different kind of pressure than what he felt in the four major finals he has already played (and won) in his young career. “You play four Grand Slams every year; the Olympics is only once every four years,” he said. He talked throughout the tournament about how badly he wanted to bring Spain the gold, and kissed the flag on his shirt after each win.
The first set lasted a ridiculous 94 minutes, and if Alcaraz left it with any specific regrets, most would be rooted in the 4-5 game, in which he had five chances to break serve—even had some makeable winners on his strings—but ultimately couldn’t find a way through. Both players remained unbroken and collided instead in a first-set tiebreak; Djokovic found the tiniest cushion with a single audacious return of serve. Tiebreaks are an exercise in managing risk. Djokovic’s overall strategy tends to be somewhat conservative, relying on the foundation of his supreme movement skills and high-margin offense. He doesn’t take too much risk with any given shot, instead gradually earning advantages over the course of the rally by stressing his opponents with consistent depth. But at 3-3 in the tiebreak, he saw an opportunity too delicious to pass up.
Alcaraz kicked a second serve, intended to jam Djokovic. But it was off the mark, and with a sitter heading right into Djokovic’s forehand strike zone. The question was how much he wanted to do with it. Djokovic stepped in and punished it with a crosscourt forehand winner tucked neatly inside the service line. That was all the cushion he needed. He took the first set, walked off court for a bathroom break, and Alcaraz stewed in his seat with his head in his hands.
Neither side dipped in quality in the second set. There is no room to breathe in best-of-three format, and this is the most meaningful match in that format that these two will ever play against each other. There were some rallies here that resembled corporal punishment, including one late in the second set that left Djokovic bent over like he’d taken a kidney punch, retreating to his water bottle in the middle of the game. If Alcaraz could keep the match this physical and drag it into a third set, his legs would fare better than his elder’s.
But Djokovic knew he needed to be done in two. He came into the second set with absolutely clear-eyed serving, hitting all his spots on his first serves and cashing out free points, the skill he's refined most in his late career. With both servers unbreakable again, they hurtled towards another tiebreak. There was a ragged yearning in Djokovic's body language, and a luminous refinement to the actual technique. In the tiebreak he hit two of the best individual shots of his season, both of them forehands on the run—all his bodyweight going onto the surgically repaired knee—both of them breathtakingly crisp, rude crosscourt winners that Alcaraz could only track with despairing eyes. I felt sure that Djokovic would trade in that knee for a gold medal, if it came to that. His impeccable second-set tiebreak was an apt end to a victory that ranks among the most impressive and unexpected of his entire career.
Djokovic trembled on all fours after the win. Alcaraz gamely tried to do on-court interviews through tears. The highest achiever in the history of men's tennis said that the feeling of winning the gold medal "supersedes everything that I've ever felt on the tennis court." He found some closure in Paris.
"That’s probably one of the biggest internal battles that I keep on fighting with myself," Djokovic told NBC after the win. "That I don’t feel like I’ve done enough, that I haven’t been enough in my life, on the court and off the court. So it’s a big lesson for me. I’m super grateful for the blessing to win a historic gold medal for my country, to complete the Golden Slam, to complete all the records."
For Alcaraz, it was a rare disappointment in this summer's rampage of delights. His tennis is typified by the extraterrestrial capacity to execute even more difficult feats in the most stressful situations, and he didn’t quite hit those highs in this match. “I’m a little bit disappointed about not playing my best tennis in some situations, in difficult situations,” he said afterward to press. “Tie-breaks, for example, he increased his level at the top and I couldn’t do it, so probably a bit sad thinking about those moments.”
Minding the details is the difference between winning and losing a match of this caliber: a putaway volley here, a midcourt forehand there. Despite securing so much hardware in recent weeks, Alcaraz has played some patchy matches—take his last two rounds in Roland-Garros—that show he can lose contact with his best tennis for long stretches. But once he does ratchet back up to that top level, it's generally untouchable, and he can recover in time to secure a win. Not against a hellbent Djokovic, however. “In front of me, I had a really angry Novak,” Alcaraz said. “An impressive player today." One of the few players alive who can make the Spanish phenom pay for any sloppiness is a 37-year-old who now, really, has nothing left to prove.
