The tears shed at the end of the match showed the most emotional side of Carlos Alcaraz. The final of the men’s singles tournament at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games was one of the highlights in tennis history, as it earned the first gold medal of the career of the Serbian champion Novak Djokovic, after a performance that borders on perfection.
The crowning of a dream for the 24-time Grand Slam champion and a great disappointment for the 21-year-old Spaniard – in tears at the end of the match – who was caressing the dream of becoming the youngest Olympic champion in the history of tennis.
In an interview with Eurosport, Alcaraz analyzed the defeat and talked about the aspects of his game on which he still has room to improve.
“When the ceremony was over, I went on my bike to relax and there we talked with Juan Carlos a little about the match, basically about what happened. In a match that was so hard fought you don’t have to look at many details, but in the end when it was time to raise the level we didn’t do it and Djokovic did. In the end it’s the only thing I can reproach myself for or that I have to improve in the tiebreaks and break points that I had in my favor. He raised the level and I didn’t. When you lose opportunities against someone like Djokovic, then you pay the price. It’s a match that I’ll think about because these types of situations make you grow, thanks to this match I’ll be a better player and for this I’ll analyze it and look at the details,” he analyzed.
However, the Spaniard wants to immediately overcome the disappointment and look to the future.
“We always want to improve and take advantage of every moment, every match, every tournament to continue improving, live the experiences and try to keep the positive things from those matches, those moments and also the negative ones, so that when this situation happens again or when I find myself in that situation again, it doesn’t happen again. In the end, tennis evolves and we want to continue improving so that these types of matches go in our favor,” he added.