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Carlos Alcaraz progressed to the Olympic Video games last on Friday as rival Novak Djokovic confronted a determined health battle to salvage his newest and possibly last probability to finish his gold medal jinx. French Open and Wimbledon champion Alcaraz turned the youngest man to achieve the boys’s last since tennis returned to the Video games in 1988 when he thrashed Felix Auger-Aliassime. The 21-year-old swept to a 6-1, 6-1 victory in simply 75 minutes and can meet Djokovic in Sunday’s last if the top-seeded Serb overcomes a knee damage in addition to Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti within the second semi-final.
“It has been an goal for the reason that begin of the 12 months to try to win the gold medal and now we’ve got one match left to try to get it performed,” stated Alcaraz.
“I need to have enjoyable within the last and do the enterprise.”
Spanish star Alcaraz — taking part in on the identical Roland Garros courtroom the place he received a maiden French Open in June — broke the Nineteenth-ranked Auger-Aliassime 3 times within the first set, racing away with six consecutive video games.
Alcaraz broke once more within the fourth and sixth video games of the second set on his strategy to claiming a fourth successive win over the Canadian, having misplaced the primary three of the pair’s sequence.
“The ultimate is essential for me and the Spanish folks however I attempt not to consider how vital it’s and can deal with the match,” stated Alcaraz.
He’s the fourth Spanish man to achieve the Olympic males’s last after Jordi Arrese at Barcelona in 1992, Sergi Bruguera in Atlanta 4 years later and Rafael Nadal who received gold at Beijing in 2008.
Djokovic admitted after his quarter-final win over Stefanos Tsitsipas on Thursday that he was “involved” over the state of his proper knee after aggravating an damage which required surgical procedure in June.
The highest seed is determined to safe an Olympic gold medal so as to add to his 24 Grand Slam titles however at 37, the clock is ticking and he might be 41 when the subsequent Olympics comes round.
His finest efficiency was at Beijing in 2008 the place he claimed a bronze medal. He has made three semi-finals since, shedding all of them.
Swiatek comfort?
Djokovic takes on Musetti, the primary Italian to achieve the singles semi-finals of an Olympic Video games.
The 22-year-old was defeated by Djokovic within the Wimbledon semi-finals final month however has breezed by way of the attract Paris, successful all 4 matches in straight units.
World quantity 16 Musetti made the semi-finals by defeating defending champion Alexander Zverev.
Regardless of boasting a 6-1 head-to-head report over the Italian, Djokovic has endured two titanic battles along with his rival on the Roland Garros courts.
On the 2021 French Open, Musetti swept to a two-sets lead earlier than a again damage pressured him to give up their last-16 conflict within the last set.
In June this 12 months, Djokovic wanted one other 5 units to prevail in a 3rd spherical conflict that completed after 3:00 am.
World primary Iga Swiatek — whose defeat within the semi-finals to Zheng Qinwen on Thursday ended a 25-match win streak at Roland Garros — takes on Anna Karolina Schmiedlova within the ladies’s bronze medal match.
The primary gold medal of the Olympics tennis occasion might be determined in combined doubles when the Czech pair of Katerina Siniakova and boyfriend Tomas Machac face Wang Xinyu and Zhang Zhizhen.
Siniakova received ladies’s doubles gold with Barbora Krejcikova at Tokyo three years in the past.
Wang and Zhang need to win solely China’s second tennis gold after Li Ting and Solar Tiantian triumphed in ladies’s doubles at Athens in 2004.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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