First gold medal for Novak Djokovic
The first gold medal for Novak Djokovic was won at the Olympic Games in Paris, one of the few awards he had not won in his career.
With 24 Grand Slam titles, 40 Masters 1000 and 428 weeks at the top of the ATP world rankings but the gold medal was missing.
Novak Djokovic burst into tears when he clinched the gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Sunday.
With his 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2) victory over Carlos Alcaraz at the Philippe Chatrier stadium at Roland Garros, Novak Djokovic won his first gold medal and became Olympic champion for the first time in his career.
Thus, he gave his country the second medal of that color at the event in France – the other was in shooting.
Since in 2018 the Balkan triumphed in Cincinnati and completed all the Masters 1000 of the season, his only carrot was the gold medal that was denied him in London 2012 (4th), Rio 2016 -he was eliminated by Juan Martin Del Potro in the first round-, and Tokyo 2020 (4th). Only in Beijing 2008 had he stood on the podium in third place.
In Paris 2024, Djokovic was the first pre-qualified player due to the absence of Jannik Sinner and had to face complex opponents, but he did not drop a set.
First gold medal for Novak Djokovic
He made his debut with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Australian Matthew Ebden and then defeated Rafael Nadal 6-1, 6-4 and German Dominik Koepfer 7-5, 6-3.
In the quarterfinals his victim was the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (8th) by 6-3 and 7-6 (3) and in the semifinals, the Italian Lorenzo Musetti (11th) by 6-4 and 6-2.
The podium was completed by Musetti who, in the match for third place, something unusual in tennis, defeated Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 and won the bronze medal.
The most winning country in the history of Olympic tennis is Great Britain with a total of 43 medals (17 gold, 14 silver and 12 bronze).
The United States, on the other hand, is at the top of the medal table because the nations are ranked according to the quality of the medals they win (gold, silver and bronze) and not the quantity: it has 21 golds and 39 medals in total. France is second with 19 and Spain fourth with 12.
It should be noted that the tennis player with the most medals is the British Reginald Doherty with four (three golds and one bronze), won between 1900 and 1908.
Further behind are the Americans Charles Winslow and Vincent Richards, and the British Andy Murray and Laurence Doherty, with three each.
READ MORE: The swimmer with the most gold medals in Olympic Games history
Murray, precisely, faced his last Games in this 2024 (he retired) and, together with Daniel Evans, was eliminated in the quarterfinals at the hands of Americans Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz by 6-2 and 6-4.
Although Djokovic is far from those names because he got, ‘barely’, his second medal, he got the only thing he was missing in a career that, statistically, is the most impressive in the history of the sport and places him on the pedestal of the activity.
The tennis world is happy with Novak Djokovic’s first gold medal.
