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Novak Djokovic claims he put ‘everything on the line’ to win Olympic gold medal


Novak Djokovic has become Olympic champion for the first time, and is now only the fifth singles player in history to complete the career Golden Slam.

Djokovic beat Carlos Alcaraz, 7-6(3) 7-6(2), to enact revenge for his Wimbledon final defeat earlier this month.

The Serbian had never even reached the final at his four previous Olympic Games, but has now become the oldest singles player to win gold at 37-years-old.

After winning the decisive gold medal point, Djokovic was very emotional and he spoke to Eurosport about what this means to him, “We almost played three hours in just two sets. An incredible battle and fight. When the last shot went past him, it was the only moment I thought I could win the match.”

He continued, “I mean I believed I could win, but to actually win it… To win Olympic gold at 37, I finally did it. Most of all, it’s my country. The pride of playing for Serbia. I know Carlos and Rafa [Nadal] love to play for Spain, Andy [Murray] loves to play for Great Britain. Roger [Federer] for Switzerland. Alex Zverev won at Tokyo for Germany. You saw the reactions of all these guys when they win; it’s something special.”

Djokovic now joins an elite group of players to win all four singles Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold medal, alongside Rafael Nadal, Andre Agassi, Serena Williams and Steffi Graf.

And the 24-time major winner revealed the effort that it took to beat the current Roland Garros and Wimbledon champion, “[Alcaraz] keeps on coming back, he keeps on asking me to play my best tennis. I thought the first set I started well. I had chances, he had chances as well.

“It was fair to finish both sets on a tie-break. We both had our chances to break but when it mattered, we both came up with some big serves and plays. I put my heart, my soul, my body, my family, everything on the line.”

After expectedly withdrawing from the ATP 1000 tournament in Montreal next week, Djokovic has time to enjoy his gold medal before he is scheduled to return to action on the hard courts of Cincinnati as defending champion.

Inside the baseline…

It was a fantastic final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, especially when you consider how one-sided the Wimbledon final was just a few weeks ago. In relative terms it has not been Djokovic’s best season, but this was an outstanding performance by the Serbian to finally overcome the hurdle of becoming Olympic champion and completing the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle. To put it into context, this win for Djokovic over Alcaraz was his first top 10 victory of the season! Alcaraz was understandably very upset after the match, but the Spaniard has still won a silver medal at his debut Olympics and will no doubt have many chances in the future to go one better.

READ NEXT: Qinwen Zheng ‘proud’ after claiming historic Olympic singles gold

Novak Djokovic and his run to the Olympic title

As the tennis events draw to a close at the Paris Olympics, we at Tennishead wanted to lookback on Djokovic’s historic run to Olympic gold:

First Round – Beat Matthew Ebden. 6-0 6-1

Second Round – Beat Rafael Nadal. 6-1 6-4

Third Round – Beat Dominik Koepfer, 7-5 6-3

Quarter-final – Beat Stefanos Tsitsipas (8), 6-3 7-6(3)

Semi-final – Beat Lorenzo Musetti (11), 6-4 6-2

Final – Beat Carlos Alcaraz (2), 7-6(3) 7-6(2)

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Matthew Johns, Tennishead Writer, is a professional tennis journalist with a specialist degree in Sports Journalism. He's a keen tennis player having represented his local club and University plus he's also a qualified tennis coach. Matthew has a deep knowledge of tennis especially the ATP Tour and thrives on breaking big tennis news stories for Tennishead.