Novak Djokovic reached the gold medal match at the Olympics for the first time in his career, less than 24 hours after raising major injury fears.
The world No. 2 beat Lorenzo Musetti 6-4 6-2 and will now face Carlos Alcaraz in Sunday’s final – a rematch of the Wimbledon championship match exactly three weeks later.
There was plenty of interest in how Djokovic would fare given his concerning comments ahead of the semi-final. The world No. 2 underwent knee surgery two months ago and has been wearing a brace ever since.
He called the physio after feeling a “sharp pain” during his win over Stefanos Tsitsipas on Thursday and later said: “I am very worried, to be honest. I don’t know what to say. The pain was very strong for two games after it happened. I don’t know if I slipped or what happened.”
Djokovic was under some pressure against Musetti early on, saving a break point. But he recovered and dragged the Italian into a marathon game, having four chances to break. It took 33 minutes for them to complete just four games as Musetti levelled at 2-2.
The 22-year-old served to stay in the opening set, racing into a 40-0 lead. But he started spraying errors and lost five points on the bounce, handing Djokovic the opening set 6-4 after more than an hour.
Musetti smashed his racket as he retreated to his bench. The unleash of emotion seemed to serve him well when he broke Djokovic straight out of the blocks in the second set. But the Serb got straight back on serve, fuelled by chants of “Nole” ringing out on Court Philippe-Chatrier.
Serving at deuce in the next game, Djokovic received his second time violation of the night and was hit with a loss of first serve. He landed the serve but lost the point and approached the umpire, getting booed by the crowd in response. The world No. 2 was then hit with a code violation for audible obscenity and debated it with the official again.
When he eventually retreated to the baseline to continue play, he gifted Musetti the break with an unforced error. And tempers flared when he sat down as he vented towards his box. But Djokovic was locked in when the changeover ended and the incident was exactly what he needed to get himself fired up.
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