Novak Djokovic Has Scripted History

On a historic day on the red clay at Roland Garros, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic created a new record and added his name to a rare league, winning his first Olympics Gold after five attempts. One would not have thought that this was such an emotional win for the man leading the Grand Slam race. But it was his tears that told the story of redemption.

“This is how legends are made,” played in the background as Djokovic climbed up to his family, amidst flowing tears and an emotional breakdown, holding the Serbian flag, surrounded by his wife and his children.

The oldest man ever to take to the Olympics tennis final and the oldest at age 37 to win the Olympics gold, the Serbian held his nerve against a tense crowd and a robust competitor on the other side of the net in Spanish Carlos Alcaraz.

Tears flowed on both sides. Alcaraz, who gave it his all, including playing around his fellow Spaniard and legend, Rafael Nadal, in the men’s doubles, the youngest tennis player to feature in the final, fought hard but would come up against a man determined to reverse his history of poor form at the Olympics.

With straight sets victory over his young Spanish opponent, Novak Djokovic broke down in tears, got down on his knees on the red clay, his palms trembling as he paid obeisance to the remarkable achievement. It was tears like one hadn’t seen before. He did break down at the last Olympics, losing the way he did, but this victory has meant more to him than anyone could ever imagine.

Not even a knee surgery after slipping at the every surface that halted his rampage at the French Open was not going to stop him from getting back to rare form. When he showed up at Wimbledon barely two weeks after his surgery and copping flak and conspiracy theories about the seriousness of the injury, Djokovic showed age and injury are no obstacle to a man determined to chart his own course of history.

He did just that, becoming the fifth player to complete a career golden slam, the victory coming on two consecutive sets that went to tiebreakers, was one of attrition, blistering groundstrokes and pugnacious attack on both sides.

In the end, perhaps the exhaustion of the competition took a toll on Alcaraz who missed just that final edge, the rugged buoyancy that made this victory particularly special for Djokovic and something worth witnessing in tennis history as something extraordinary.

The scoreline 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-2) at Court Philippe-Chatrier did not do justice to the intensity of the competition or of the incredible spirit of Djokovic that made this much anticipated success respected by even fans who have been adversarial towards him.

A 16-year wait for a gold medal was not going to dampen the ambitions of the man who came back from a minor meniscus surgery and lost the final to Alcaraz at Wimbledon on grass three weeks later.

Djokovic joins the heady tennis club of golden slams: four Grand Slams and an Olympics gold. This includes two men and two women: Steffi Graff, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams. (Roger Federer who won gold at the Olympics in the doubles.)

On a side note, it has to be mentioned that the unexpected bronze medal winner in the men’s tennis event was Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti who beat the likes of defending Olympics champion, Alexander Zverev and went on to beat Felix Auger-Aliassime for the medal. He became the first Italian tennis player to win the first Olympics medal since 1924, i.e. in a century when Uberto de Morpurgo won it in Paris in 1924.

Djokovic has now etched himself into tennis history and Olympics history, adding a gold medal to the bronze he won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (where Nadal won the gold), finishing out of the medals in 2021 in London and in 2021 in Tokyo.

He will reignite the debate of who is the greatest of them all even as he now carries tennis on his shoulders, staring into the sunset and Alcaraz, a morose finalist on Sunday but with a formidable career ahead of him with four major Grand Slams and a silver medal at the Olympics to now add to it.

But the day belonged to the man who has scripted different personalities for himself from being the tour joker, to being the darling of crowds for his affability to suddenly becoming a villain and unpopular champion, not quite matching the charisma and finesse of Federer or the formidable aura of Nadal, becoming something of an outsider amongst the trio who have dominated the men’s game for two decades.

With the Olympics gold and the manner in which he fought for this through injury, endurance and the rise of a new generation, Djokovic has added reams of pages to tennis glorious history. And the Olympics is only the richer for it.