Rune, Tsitsipas, Monfils reflect on Djokovic's win: 'He's completed tennis in a way'

  • Posted: Aug 05, 2024

While Novak Djokovic battled Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday in Paris for the Olympic singles gold medal, the rest of the ATP Tour’s stars were in Montreal, preparing for the National Bank Open Presented by Rogers. Dozens watched the match in the players’ lounge, including No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings Jannik Sinner and his team.

After the match, the world’s best players were in awe of Djokovic’s accomplishment. The Serbian defeated Alcaraz to complete his set of ‘Big Titles’. He has won all four Grand Slam tournaments, all nine ATP Masters 1000 events, the Nitto ATP Finals and now the Olympic singles gold medal.

Holger Rune thought the match was “incredible”.

“I think if there’s one person that deserves it so much, it’s Novak. He’s completed tennis in a way,” Rune told ATPTour.com. “He’s taking tennis to another level. He’s just the greatest. I take massive inspiration from him and I think he’s a very nice guy as well.

“Novak is 37 now and winning the gold medal, I think it shows a little bit on the level he is producing. I think it’s completely incredible. Hopefully we’ll still see him a few more years on the Tour so we can compete against him.”

Stefanos Tsitsipas explained that he could tell how much Djokovic wanted the final crowning jewel in his collection.

“He visualised getting a gold medal,” Tsitsipas said. “I’m sure he’s someone that has been putting a lot of effort into making that happen. It is probably one of the things that he was missing as World No. 1 and a multiple Grand Slam champion, the gold medal. It was something that was not part of his collection.”

En route to the gold medal, Djokovic defeated Tsitsipas in a tight two-setter in which the Greek had a big opportunity to claim the second set and force a decider.

“I felt like I was playing good at the Olympics myself and I had a massive lead against him in the second set. And I honestly did feel like I had some good chances in that particular match,” Tsitsipas said. “It was disappointing to see myself lose up there being a double break up in that match. But at least I can say I put my best effort and I lost to the champion, the gold medalist of the Olympic Games. I did try my best. Having played good tennis at Roland Garros, at least getting any kind of medal at the Olympics would have been a dream of mine.”

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Pablo Carreno Busta, a close friend of Alcaraz’s who also has long trained at Juan Carlos Ferrero’s eponymous academy, watched the first set of the gold-medal match before his practice session.

“I think that they played unbelievable tennis,” Carreno Busta said. “It’s true that Carlos probably at the beginning was a little bit nervous, but that’s normal. For Novak also, it probably was his last chance to [win] the gold medal. I think it was a big spectacle for tennis. Carlos and Novak are probably the best in this moment and we enjoy watching them.”

The last player to defeat Djokovic at the Olympic Games was Carreno Busta, in the Tokyo bronze-medal match.

“Probably I played one of my best tournaments of my career. I remember that when I lost in semi-finals against Karen Khachanov, I thought, ‘Well, if I lost against Karen and now I have to play against Novak, how many chances will I have to win the bronze medal?’” Carreno Busta recalled. “But then after that I I remember that when I started the match I just thought of doing my best and we’ll see what happens. If Novak plays at his 100 per cent, it’s true that it’s very, very difficult for me to beat him but I know also Novak lost the day before in the semi-finals in singles, also in semi-finals in mixed doubles. So for him it was probably very, very tough mentally, and I think that I took advantage of this.”

One of the players on Tour who has known Djokovic the longest is Gael Monfils. Their first Lexus ATP Head2Head match was in 2005 and the Serbian leads their series 19-0. Even so, the Frenchman was thrilled to see Djokovic triumph in Paris.

“He completed so much before. Novak is a legend in our sport,” Monfils said. “He is just completely special. He is completely different, completely special and for him I think it’s the biggest accomplishment possible so I’m just super happy for him.”

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