Alcaraz beats Auger-Aliassime to secure Olympic gold

Clay, grass, clay: a transition from surface to surface never seen before in tennis, until two Grand Slam tournaments and one Olympic Games took place in 2024.

With two events under his belt and one almost over, Carlos Alcaraz is busy taking care of business while the rest of the field has no answer.

After convincingly beating Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime at Roland Garros a few months ago, the 21-year-old Spaniard and champion of Roland Garros and Wimbledon defeated his opponent 6-1, 6-1 in the semi-finals of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Now that medal of mythical importance is approaching, in a sport where it is not the pinnacle, Alcaraz has already lifted three of the four Grand Slam trophies.

With No. 1 seed Novak Djokovic out sick and fearing a return of his knee injury, and rising Italian 22-year-old Lorenzo Musetti as his other possible opponent, he is one match away from gold. He is assured of silver.

In the bright sunshine of Roland Garros on Friday, both sets followed a pattern down to the last detail, as if Alcaraz had written them. Lose a game on the return; win a game on serve. In the second set, the other way around.

Then for five games he drags Auger-Aliassime around the court, throwing his game plan into disarray until he comes up with new ideas, as he should, but none of them work. He gets more and more confused until he looks over the net and it’s 1-5 and it’s over.

At the baseline, he traded high, heavy groundstrokes before picking up a ball that wasn’t deep enough and firing it into the corner. At the net, he controlled the Canadian’s position as if he were programming a dance mat.

Alcaraz was at times irresistible (Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images)

Alcaraz managed to break Auger-Aliassime’s serve several times when trailing 40-15, occasionally winning a set (only eight in the first set). This was compensated by the mental pressure Auger-Aliassime felt. They capitalized on the last chances and put too much pressure on easy shots.

Meanwhile, Alcaraz seems to be adding layers to his already stacked game in real time. After losing to Americans Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek in his ‘Nadalcaraz’ doubles match with Rafael Nadal, he has re-established himself.

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By his own standards, he won the French Open and Wimbledon in a rather laborious manner, only really coming alive when he needed to – whether he was losing or in the two finals.

Something similar is happening here, because with the gold medal in sight, he’s playing somewhere near his peak. Call it clutch, call it timely, call it what you will — if he unlocks that particular skill at 21, everyone else is going to have to catch up.

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(Top photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)