TENNIS.com's 2024 ATP Match of the Year: Novak Djokovic conquers Carlos Alcaraz at the Olympics, and finally wins gold

It isn’t often that the best match of a men’s season lasts only two sets. But it isn’t often that two sets contain as much high-stakes drama and dazzle as Novak Djokovic’s two-hour and 50-minute win over Carlos Alcaraz at the Paris Olympics.

Let’s start with the stakes. In this century, the Olympic tennis event has been steadily elevated in stature, to the point where it’s now on par with the Grand Slams. In 2024, Djokovic elevated it one step higher, making a gold medal his primary objective for the season.

It was the one hole in his mountainous résumé, the one competition where nothing had ever broken his way.

In Beijing in 2008, Djokovic lost a semifinal to Rafael Nadal by wildly shanking an easy overhead at match point. In Rio in 2016, he walked off in tears after losing to Juan Martin del Potro in the opening round. In Tokyo in 2021, he chucked his racquet into the stands after a shock defeat to Pablo Carreño Busta. These were especially painful losses to swallow for Djokovic, who had long prioritized playing for his country, and whose career had taken flight after he led Serbia to its first Davis Cup in 2010. At 37, would he realistically have another shot to bring a gold back to Belgrade?

When this match began, there was a more urgent question that he needed to answer: Did he have a realistic chance of beating Alcaraz? The Spaniard is 16 years younger. Earlier in the summer, he had won Roland Garros on the same court, and beaten the Serb in three abrupt sets in the Wimbledon final. At the Olympics, Djokovic was still recovering from knee surgery, and had been forced to scrap with everything he had to survive his quarterfinal against Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Djokovic understood Alcaraz was the future, but if he could hold off the tide of youth for one more afternoon, he wanted it to be this one.

With that in mind, he took the fight straight to his harder-hitting opponent. He countered the Spaniard’s electric pace by moving forward, serving and volleying, pulling the trigger as quickly as possible. There was a frantic feel to the points, and a desperation from both men, but it didn’t cause them to overhit or get tight. They drew each other up and back, and pulled each other side to side. Rallies ended with winners and forcing shots, rather than mistakes. They created 14 break points, and saved them all.

It was the one hole in his mountainous résumé, the one competition where nothing had ever broken his way.

Three moments made the difference.

The first came at 4-4 in the first set. Alcaraz had worked his way up to a frenetic scrambling peak, making impossible get after impossible get; Djokovic could only smile and shake his head at his deathless young opponent. Five times Alcaraz arrived at break point, but five times Djokovic kept him at bay by getting in the first strike. If Alcaraz had broken there, the set may have been his. Djokovic wouldn’t let it happen.

The other two deciding moments came in the tiebreakers, and each played out similarly.

In the first, the score went to 3-3, before Djokovic sent a (possibly mishit) forehand return onto the sideline for a winner. From there, Alcaraz made two straight unforced errors.

Then, in the second tiebreaker, Djokovic cracked the shot of the match, and one of the most consequential forehands of his career.

At 2-2, Djokovic and Alcaraz got into the type of fight-fire-with-more-fire baseline rally that had characterized this contest. Normally, Alcaraz is the one who terminates these points with a blistering winner into the corner that leaves his opponent flailing futilely. And, as expected, Alcaraz did hit a shot that looked, for a split-second, like it would do just that.

This time it didn’t work. Instead of flailing as the ball went past him, the 37-year-old took a step back, wheeled his hips around, and sent back an even harder crosscourt forehand, at a sharper angle, that left his 21-year-old opponent sputtering in response. Djokovic had a winner, and a 3-2 lead. Again, Alcaraz followed with two unforced errors. Djokovic wouldn’t lose another point.

“We almost played three hours for two sets. It was an incredible battle, incredible fight,” said Djokovic, who collapsed in tears after the final point. “When the last shot went past him, that was the only moment I actually thought I could win the match.”

The victory lifted Djokovic into the most elite club of all: The Golden Slammers. There he joined Steffi Graf, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams, the only players to win all four majors and an Olympic singles gold. Djokovic called it the final piece in his puzzle, and said it made him feel, finally, as it he is “enough”—as a person and a player.

The match lasted nearly three hours, but Djokovic made time stand still, as he stopped the changing of the guard in its tracks. He wouldn’t win another title all season, and he appeared, for a moment, destined to lose this one to a younger, more energetic opponent as well. But when the 24-time Slam champ decided he had to have it, there was nothing that younger opponent could do to stop him.

Djokovic, any long-time fan of the sport could have told you, was just being Djokovic. His age may have made you doubt him, but his history should have dispelled those doubts. As the last 20 years have shown us, when he wants something on a tennis court, he finds a way to get it.