Djokovic Wins 2024 Olympic Gold Against Alcaraz + What We Can Learn

So Novak Djokovic beat Carlos Alcaraz for the Olympics gold medal, the last title that he still did not have. And it was one of the best matches I have absolutely ever seen. So I had to make a video about this. There's so much in this match that we can talk about. We're gonna look at this from all four areas of the game. What you can learn from these players and also, you know, what the future is going to hold as well as why these two, when they're at their best, are in a totally different league than everybody else, including Sinner and other players. So let's start by talking about the match. Djokovic won 7-6, 7-6. There was not a single break in this match, which again shows you how high the level was that these two were playing at. Now, a couple of interesting things here. I'm not gonna go into too much detail on individual points, but Djokovic started off playing extremely well. After the first, you know, two or three longer rallies, it was immediately visible that he had a totally different level compared to the Wimbledon finals where he, you know, got beaten easily by Alkiras. And we all know that Djokovic really wanted this title. I think he even used Wimbledon a little bit as preparation for the Olympics. He desperately wanted that gold medal, which he was still missing. And another interesting aspect here was that I think Djokovic, in his mind, came onto the court a little bit as the underdog, which, you know, is very rare for him, obviously. But with, you know, the context of his surgery just, I don't know, maybe eight weeks ago or so, couple of weeks before Wimbledon, then at Wimbledon, he got beat so easily. Carlos has been in great form, you know, won the French, won Wimbledon. All of this together, I think, allowed Novak to go out on the court with a little bit of that feeling that he does not have very much to lose. And I think that allowed him to play very freely from the start. Now, he also mentioned that, you know, the fact that previously he had lost in the semifinals of the Olympics every single time and never reached the finals, you know, allowed him to feel very happy about reaching the finals so that he had overcome that hurdle that previously he remained stuck at. And so he had secured the silver medal. He came out there being the underdog in his mind. And I think that in combination with just incredible preparation, you know, allowed him to start very freely and play very strong and aggressive right from the start. Now, some commentators were wondering why is he playing so much better than in the Wimbledon finals? And the answer to that is simple. After the surgery, he simply did not have, you know, enough time to physically prepare for the level that Alcaraz is showing these days towards the Wimbledon finals. Now, the crazy part is it was still good enough to beat everybody else and get to the finals. But for that Alcaraz level, he needed a different level of physical intensity that he just was not ready for. And the additional time to prepare for the Olympics allowed him to, you know, get fit enough, get ready enough to play and compete at that level. So Djokovic started off very strong and aggressive and it almost looked like Alcaraz was a little bit surprised by how well Djokovic came out of the gates. And then very quickly, Novak had three break points, which, you know, Carlos overall did a good job of defending those break points. So there was no break. Then there was a game where Carlos had, I think, eight break points, including one backhand return where Djokovic was serving, volleying, easy backhand return that Carlos missed. So certainly, you know, it could have gone either way there. The set was very much equal in terms of the level that they were playing at. However, towards the end of the set in the tiebreak, Djokovic managed to raise his level again. And I think that, you know, that was a little bit surprising again to Alcaraz because Djokovic played some unbelievable shots, forehand winners on the run where, you know, against most other players, he would defend more. But against Alcaraz, he knows he has to go for more. And one of the, actually the biggest key for Djokovic when he plays Alcaraz, in my opinion, and generally speaking for Djokovic to play his best, is that he needs to be very aggressive with his forehand. When he plays his best, he's very aggressive with his forehand. Now, he does not have the racket head speed on the forehand that Carlos Alcaraz has. And at the end of the day, Alcaraz has a better forehand on average. That being said, for Djokovic, the key is still to play his forehand as aggressive as he can, because on average, you know, even somebody like Djokovic can generate significantly more racket head speed on the forehand than on his backhand, even though his backhand is probably the best we've ever seen, the best two-hander we've ever seen. But so a player like Djokovic also needs to dominate, especially on clay, dominate with the forehand from the baseline. He cannot, you know, rely on the backhand-to-backhand exchange because Alcaraz will run around and he will find a way if Djokovic goes backhand-to-backhand too much, and then Alcaraz will take control of the point. So it's critical for Djokovic to be very aggressive with his forehand, very aggressive in general. He did that, and then he came up with some just incredible plays in that tiebreaker and, you know, won that tiebreaker. And you could see that it did a little something to Alcaraz in his mind. You know, he was a little bit surprised, in my opinion, at the level that Djokovic was able to show there. So Djokovic won that tiebreak, and from then on, even though the second set was also no breaks and a 7-6, you know, result, it looked a little bit like Djokovic had more and more of the upper hand, where probably, you know, if I had to, in the first set overall, maybe Alcaraz was like 51-49, slightly better. But in the second set, you know, it looked more like Djokovic was able to take over the match a little bit. His confidence went up from winning that first set. And Alcaraz was definitely, I think, mentally a little bit surprised by... Also, there were a lot of long rallies that Djokovic won, you know, really long points that Djokovic won with some incredible points, and that did something mentally to Alcaraz. So, second set, again, unbelievable level. Djokovic played, I would say, even better than in the first set. Certainly had chances to win that set, you know, earlier, didn't manage to do so, and then in the tie break, once again, Djokovic came up with incredible points. I mean, this is honestly, probably the best match I've ever seen in terms of the level throughout the entire match, you know, possibly the Cincinnati match, or even the Wimbledon finals last year of these two players, you know, were at that same level. It's a little bit difficult to judge, but I think for Djokovic, this was his best performance probably of all time, considering the fact he had the surgery just maybe eight weeks before, and also he's 37 years old, Alcaraz is 21 years old. So, I was just absolutely amazed, and to be honest, I was not expecting Djokovic to be this strong. I had my doubts that he could, you know, he could have that level after what we'd seen at Wimbledon. Now, I still thought he can get to that level, but did he have enough time to physically prepare for that level? Now, I had my doubts, and I probably, if I had to bet before the match, I certainly would have put my money on Alcaraz, but Djokovic just came out absolutely unbelievable with unbelievable tennis, and it was just absolutely exciting to watch this match. So, let's get into the four areas of the game and what we can learn from these two amazing players. Not surprisingly, we're gonna start with technique. Technique is the cornerstone of a great tennis game, and I think a real evolution has happened there recently. Basically, you know, if you look at these two players and why they are really dominating, is their technique is just absolutely efficient and just really, really good on the most important shots in the game. So, you have the serve, the forehand, and the backhand, and in my opinion, you just cannot have a weakness on any of these three strokes anymore if you wanna win a lot of grand slams. So, let's talk about Novak first. When he came on tour, you know, even over 10, 15 years ago, probably 20 years ago, there was a time where his serve was a real weakness. I remember seeing him, I think, in Indian Wells. He was working with Todd Martin at the time, and his serve was a complete mess. The racket face was open. He was double faulting. Serve was a real weakness. And then, even before that, his forehand used to be a weakness and used to give him problems. He used to over-rotate. The racket face was a little bit too inverted. He was framing some shots on the forehand, and it was a bit of a weakness. Not a big weakness, but a bit of a weakness. The serve, at times, was a big weakness. And so, he managed to fix these. I think on his serve, it was already very good when he was working with Boris Becker, but then I think it became even better. Ivan Isevich helped him with that, I believe, and his serve has become incredible. It's not one of the fastest serves on tour, but similar to Federer, his serve is fast enough and incredibly accurate and precise. So, his serve is a big weapon nowadays. So, if I had to rate his strokes, I would say his serve is a nine out of 10, probably, these days. His backhand is definitely a 10 out of 10, and then his forehand is probably also a nine out of 10, something like that. And his movement, for sure, is a 10 out of 10. And so, you combine all of that, and then you look at Akeras, and you see that Akeras has improved his serve, which was his slight weakness still. You know, his forehand and backhand are pretty much, you know, almost a 10 out of 10, or maybe, you know, times 9.5 out of 10, but they're just unbelievably good. I think, you know, a year or two ago, or two years ago, I think his serve was maybe an eight out of 10, and now it's probably 8.5 to nine out of 10, because he significantly improved his serve. Interestingly, I don't think his serve improved, really, because of the change with his windup, which has been discussed widely on YouTube and so forth. I think he changed his windup, yes, but I think it's actually more of a coincidence or a side effect that his serve improved, because as a result, his toss is lower, and his motion is a little bit more fluid. There's less of a stop or pause in the trophy pose, and that, I think, gives him more precision and just has raised his serving level up even further. So, these two, you know, have incredible strokes, serve forehand, backhand, no real weakness there at all, and they combine that with incredible athleticism, and that's why they really are the two best players in the world when they're at their best. I don't think Sinner can compete when these two are at their best. Sure, they're gonna have a tournament where they're not at their best, and Sinner won a Grand Slam, he'll probably win a few more, but these two are, in my opinion, in a different league, because Sinner has a slight weakness still on that forehand that's just a little bit bigger and a little bit more important than the slight weakness that Alcaraz had on his serve, for example. So, the lesson to be learned here for all of us is that you wanna continuously work on your technique. You need to continue to evolve your technique if you wanna maximize your potential. It is the cornerstone of a great tennis game, and I think in the future, in the men's game, there's gonna be fewer and fewer players who have a weakness on one of the three main strokes. We used to see generations before, Jim Curia had a relatively weak backhand, even Steffi Graf on the women's side, won with a slice backhand exclusively. Federer had a bit of a backhand weakness. Of course, I'm gonna get some comments about that, but he really did. All you have to do is listen to him. He was interviewed once and asked if he's working on his backhand. His response was, I've been trying to fix that for 20 years. Interestingly enough, I think when he got injured for the first time, I think 2016, 17, he had to take six months off. This gave him a lot of time to work on his backhand. He improved his backhand, and then he came back and won another Grand Slam, and his backhand was better. So, before that, he also just didn't really find the levers or find the key to improve it in between all of the tournaments that are going on. So, the lesson to be learned here is really that we all need to continuously try to improve our technique if we wanna maximize our potential. That being said, we recommend doing this in training blocks and at specific phases and times of the year. And this is something where I think we are often a little bit misunderstood. We don't want players to be constantly working on technique. So, let's say you wanna make a big technical change. So, then you work, you dedicate a training block for intensive technical training, maybe four to six weeks. You make those changes. During that time, you reduce your tournament or point play even to close to zero, maybe some point play to try it out. But it's an intensive training block where you can really go through the progressions. And the next phase, you start to incorporate this into point play. So, you start to play more points in practice and then eventually, maybe in tournaments, some light tournaments, not so important tournaments. And then after that could be another phase where you start to really, you go into the tournament phase. And during this phase, we don't want you to be thinking a lot about technique or maybe not even at all. During this phase, you focus on your strategy, on your mental game, on your footwork. So, this goes in phases and we recommend working with training blocks. But at the end of the day, if you wanna maximize your game, there's absolutely no way around working on your technique and improving your technique because technique also heavily influences your options on the strategic or tactical side, which we'll speak about now. Okay, so how good your technique is dramatically influences your options on the tactical side. Let's look at that in the context of the match Djokovic-Alkras here at the Olympics. So, basically, the basic concept is you wanna know which diagonal favors you from the baseline. So, there's always this battle going on on which type of point are we getting into because one type of point favors one player and usually one other type of point favors the other player. So, Carlos against Novak. Carlos wants to dominate with his forehand, one of the best forehands we've ever seen from the middle of the court or from the backhand side, okay? That's where he's best with his forehand. He's not best when he has to hit from the forehand corner, forehand cross-court rallies. His forehand is still strong, but that's not where he dictates and dominates points. So, he wants to get into a situation where he can dominate from the middle of the court with his forehand or even from the backhand side. Now, Novak wants to avoid that at all costs because he knows how dangerous Carlos's forehand is. Novak does not quite have the racket head speed on the forehand, still has a very good forehand, but it's not as big of a weapon as Carlos's forehand. So, Novak wants to avoid that. What does Novak wanna do? Novak wants to actually put pressure on Carlos's forehand in the forehand corner. Now, it's also fine for him to put pressure on Carlos's backhand in the backhand corner. He just needs to make sure that he doesn't hit weaker shots to the middle or the backhand side where Carlos then can dictate with his forehand. So, for Novak, that means he needs to be very aggressive with his forehand, hitting it cross-court, very aggressive so that Carlos cannot take over and dictate the point. And that's what Novak did right from the start here. We saw that. His forehand was very aggressive in the cross-court rally, but then, of course, he also went a lot for the down-the-line shot, which he also needs to do. He needs to be in control against Carlos. He needs to be more aggressive than what his true nature is. Novak is used to winning points a little bit more from the defensive side, and so he has to go out of his comfort zone, which we'll talk about more on the mental side, which he managed to do. And so he tried to hit a lot of backhands down the line because even though you would think his backhand is probably the best in the history of the game, why does he not want to stay in that backhand cross-court exchange too long? Because, on average, all players, including Djokovic, have reduced or less racket hit speed on the backhand side. And the risk of Carlos running around one of these backhands if Djokovic keeps hitting cross-court and then taking over the point with a forehand from that position is too big for Novak. So what did he do? If he hits his backhand cross-court, it has to be very aggressive, but he then often went down the line early in the rally to switch the direction. Then Carlos has to move all the way from the backhand corner to the forehand side, hit a forehand a little bit more on the defensive, not his best shot, and then we have a forehand-to-forehand rally, and there Djokovic remained aggressive. You know, if he goes back cross-court, he really went for it. He hit it hard. Or then he also would, early on in the rally, try to go down the line, aggressive. So the key for him was really to avoid that Carlos can dictate with that forehand from the middle of the court. And so these two are constantly battling around this, and they are adjusting their serve strategy accordingly, and so should you. So you should think about that when you play somebody. What's the matchup here? What diagonal rally favors me? What do I want to get into? What type of point do I want to play? So Novak serves a lot of first serves from the deuce court out wide. He hits it very well, but then it's very likely that Carlos is going to return cross-court, and then Novak can try to dictate with his forehand, and from there, it's very far for Carlos to change the point into a scenario where he can dominate with his forehand from the backhand corner, okay? So he served a lot out wide in the deuce court and worked very well for him. Carlos also missed some returns there, and so that strategy worked very well. Now, in the at court, Novak also served quite a bit into Carlos's forehand. Why? If he serves out wide into the backhand, Carlos can return that cross-court, has quite a bit of an angle, and then Carlos is already positioned in the backhand corner where he can get that forehand next, and that's very dangerous for Novak. So serving a lot like that. Now, at times, I thought Novak was too obvious with that from the deuce court, constantly serving out wide so that Carlos could read it. He does need to mix it up. You know, every fourth serve or so, go down the tee, and he started doing that a little bit later on. Carlos, on the other hand, wants to set up his forehand from the middle of the court and from the backhand corner. So his serve strategy, he hit a lot of high-bouncing kick serves on the first serve, especially from the at court. Novak really struggled with this, so he would hit that big, heavy kicker to the backhand, which is interesting because Novak has the best backhand return we've ever seen. He usually does not struggle with this return, but Carlos hit that kicker very well, and the problem for Novak there was, against most players, a solid cross-court return is enough, but Carlos would run around that and then just nail that forehand down the line usually. So Djokovic had to either hit it very well cross-court or go down the line, which he rarely even tried. And so, and then he was talking to his box, he was not sure, should I back up against that kick serve and then go for a swing, or should I move in? My opinion, he has no choice but to move in, take it early, and then either nail it cross-court, or I would have liked to seen him nail that down the line a couple of times. He has the skills on the backhand return. It is a tough shot for sure, but he's the best returner of all time. And so I think, you know, if I had, you know, if he had asked me, I would have said move in, step in, go nail it cross-court if you can, or at every once in a while, nail it down the line. But when he backs up, the problem is, again, this gives Carlos a lot of time, and then Carlos can dominate with that forehand from the backhand corner. So that's what's constantly going on. Now, a couple of other things here strategically. Novak has a relatively extreme forehand grip, specifically also with the heel pad. And this has one consequence. When Carlos is on defense, he can hit a short slice to the tee, a low short slice, and Novak struggles against that shot a lot with his forehand. He often misses it, clips the top of the net, and he cannot, just cannot generate as much racket head speed there as Carlos can. And with his heel pad being further down, now this gets very technical, technical, and it makes it very tough for him also to hit that shot well. Let's say from the middle of the court, it's much easier for him to hit it to the backhand corner, but then it's high. Carlos kind of knows it's coming, and Carlos can really hit it. And it's harder for him, for Novak, to hit that into the forehand corner. And so, you know, that is, again, where technique influences your tactical options. So Carlos would, on defense, often hit a short, low-bouncing slice, and Novak struggled with that a little bit. On the other hand, when Novak is on defense, he needs to get that ball deep. If he leaves it short, even with a slice, Carlos is gonna destroy that with his forehand. You know, his grip and his technique just makes it easier for him, more racket head speed, and he just destroys that shot. So again, you know, the technique heavily influences your tactical options here. Another interesting aspect here was that Novak came to the net quite often, I think 27 times. I saw a stat, and he won 20 out of those, so I think 74%. And he has to come forward against Carlos because this goes hand-in-hand with he has to try to dictate as many points as possible. It's very difficult against Alcaraz, but he has to try to do that. He did that very well. I think he serve-and-volleyed five times, and he made five of those points. The surprise serve-and-volley is a very underrated tactic at this level because players on clay, these players will go back on the return and nail the shot, but if you surprise serve-and-volley every now and then, you know, the ball is coming high, and you can finish the point. So Novak had to come forward, was very effective at it. Now, does that mean he should, you know, 74% of points won, does that mean he should come forward more often? I don't think so because he only wins 74% of points at the net when he comes forward on the right shots. So that's often a common misconception. You look at a stat like that, you know, he has to come forward more often. It's not that simple. Okay, Carlos also came forward, I think, 20 times. I think also won around 75% of the points, and, you know, he prepares them so well that it often is relatively easy for him to finish the points up there. Another interesting aspect is the out-cross drop shot. Everybody talks about how amazing his drop shot is. His drop shot is actually amazing. Technically, you know, he does it very, very well. He doesn't cut down, he finishes up high. He does it very well, technically. That's actually not the main reason why his drop shot on the forehand side is so good. The main reason is all that racket head speed that he has on his normal topspin forehand shots. What does that do? And the same was true for Federer and Nadal. If your opponent has such a heavy, dangerous forehand, what happens? You know, every time your opponent sets up for a forehand, you're already on your back foot, and then the drop shot doesn't even have to be that great, and you cannot even get there. So that combination of so much racket head speed on the forehand that puts opponents on the back foot with that drop shot makes that Carlos Alcaraz drop shot very effective. Not saying his technique is great on the drop shot, but it's not the biggest factor why the drop shot is so effective for him. The biggest factor is actually that his forehand is such a massive weapon. Now, footwork and athleticism, you know, in my opinion, the second cornerstone of a great tennis game. So, you know, the best players in the world, you'll see they will have great technique and great athleticism, great footwork. They're super explosive, super fast. Both of these are at the absolute top level that you can be. You know, Carlos might be, he's 21, Novak is 37, might be just a tad bit faster, but then Novak probably has maybe even better endurance. So they're at their absolute best there. All I can say is, you know, if you want to improve quickly, get stronger legs, you know, get fitter, and stronger legs will quickly make you win more tennis matches. It is, you know, technique and fitness, athleticism, movement determine, you know, 80% of how good of a player you are. Strategy in the mental game determine, you know, at the level that you're at, how many of the close matches you win, how smart you play, you know, your mental, the mental aspect of the game and so forth. But, you know, if you want to jump up levels, usually you want to look at technique and athleticism movement. So let's talk about the mental side of things. And that was also super fascinating in this match. As I said already, I think it played a big role that Novak kind of saw himself as the underdog, allowed him to play very freely from the start. But so mental toughness, you know, this is obviously something that's being talked about a lot and does play a big role here. I, you know, I don't think I've seen Novak do better mentally and be mentally tougher than in this match. It was just an absolutely astonishing performance, especially when it mattered most in the tie breaks. And he has worked on this for years and years and years. If you read his book, you'll read that he meditates, you know, daily. And in my opinion, meditation is probably the best training exercise for your mental strength. It trains your focus muscle. It allows you to be really present in the moment and really focus on the task at hand. So, you know, Novak's level there was superb. And one thing I want to mention also is, and this is, you know, very, very common at the pro level. I've worked with quite a few pros, not at that level, but a little bit below. And oftentimes you have players who've won a lot of matches during their junior years being a little bit more defensive. And Novak is such a player. You know, Novak was in Munich where I live for two years in the Niki Pillage Tennis Academy. I heard a lot of stories about coaches playing matches against him. And he definitely, you know, his natural instinct is to be a little bit more of a counter puncher. And so he has to get out of his comfort zone to play his best tennis and be more aggressive. And he's managed to do that. And we all struggle with that from time to time. And, you know, it's because our ego obviously gets in the way. So we are afraid, you know, if I go where I'm not that comfortable, you know, I might play really bad and I might look bad. And so we all, you know, we all have to overcome that true nature. And for most players, it is more, in my experience, that they tend to be more defensive when it matters most, when they need to be a little bit more aggressive. What's interesting is that Carlos Alcaraz is one of the few exceptions here. I think from a young age, this guy, you know, has been told to really go for his shots and swing at it and swing all out. And if anything, you know, if Carlos can probably improve a little bit, when in some situations he's too offensive from defensive positions, where he should just roll the ball back high cross court. And so I think that is actually probably the biggest area of the game where he can improve. He just, he goes for too many flashy shots still sometimes from defensive positions. And that is his true nature. So he also needs to overcome his true nature or his basic instinct, let's put it that way, from being a junior and from what's worked well for him at times to reach his absolute best level. Now I'm not saying at all, he should be playing defensive. He needs to be, when he can, he should be trying to control all the points. But when he plays against somebody like Djokovic, he's going to find himself on defense at times. And then at times he goes for flashy down the line shots where he should just roll the ball back high cross court. So that is something I think we can also, all of us learn from that. We have to overcome our own ego a little bit. If we want to improve, we have to go a little bit out of our comfort zone and be fine with being uncomfortable, be fine with maybe losing some matches every now and then that we could have won otherwise. And I've had this experience a lot working with lower level professional players that this was a big aspect that they really struggled with. Again, in my opinion, mindfulness type, meditative type exercises are really the best solution for that, that I've come across. So what does the future look like for Carlos, for Novak, and also other players that are in the mix like Yannick Sinner? Now, in my opinion, when Carlos Alcaraz and or Novak Djokovic are at their best at the moment, they are at their own level. I don't think Yannick Sinner can compete at that level. He can certainly win at times against these players and he's won a Grand Slam, he's gonna win a couple of more Grand Slams, but when one of these two is at their best, I think that level is higher than what Yannick Sinner plays. Why is that the case? Sinner still has a significant weakness on the forehand, which does not show very much when he plays against opponents that are weaker than him because these opponents do not put a lot of pressure on his forehand, they just don't even get there. You know, he dominates, his serve has improved a lot, and I'm not saying Sinner can't improve his forehand, he certainly can because he already improved his serve a lot, lowered his toss as well, there's a common theme there, a lot of players have improved their serve that way, Srerev as well, lowered his toss, serves a lot better, moves even better, his backhand is a 10 out of 10, but his forehand at the highest level is a slight weakness. He has an inverted racket face, just too inverted, and it takes time under pressure, and so what happens when he plays guys like Alcaraz and Djokovic at their best, they consistently put too much pressure on that forehand, and then he starts to frame some shots, and then he loses a little bit of confidence in that forehand, and then it can become a little bit of a downward spiral. Now again, this is all at the absolute highest level, I do think he'll win several more Grand Slams, now Djokovic is not gonna play forever, but my prediction is, you know, for every slam that Yannick Sinner wins, Alcaraz will probably win three or four, you know, nobody can constantly be at their best, so, you know, I'm sure Sinner will win four or five Grand Slams at the end of the day, but I think Alcaraz is gonna be more in that, like, 20 range or something, or even higher, you know, see. So that's based on the current circumstances, of course, Sinner could improve that forehand, could get rid of that inverted racket face, make it a little bit more efficient, you know, just like Djokovic improved his forehand, and so I would love to see that, I think it's super exciting to watch these guys evolve, you know, with each other, right, so they're constantly raising the level, you know, and then the other player goes back, and says, all right, what do I need to improve? Sinner said, I need to improve my serve, he did, he won a Grand Slam, he hadn't won one yet, you know, so kudos to him for that, he improved his movement as well, and so this is constantly going on, I really wish that Novak plays, you know, another two, three years at this level, it would just be amazing to see more of these Akras, Djokovic matchups, I, yeah, I would love to see it, there is a lot to learn here, and yeah, I hope you enjoyed this video, you know, definitely comment your observations below, questions, I'm gonna be checking that, and let me know if you enjoy these videos, if you want me to make more of this kind, these types of videos, we haven't done so many like this, yeah, let me know, bye.