Carlos Alcaraz reaches the Olympics men’s tennis singles final by beating Felix Auger-Aliassime

PARIS (AP) — Carlos Alcaraz moved one win away from becoming the youngest man to win an Olympics tennis singles gold medal by beating Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-1, 6-1 in the Paris Games semifinals on Friday.

Alcaraz is a 21-year-old from Spain who already owns four Grand Slam titles — including in June at Roland Garros, the clay-court facility being used for tennis at the 2024 Games — and is about a month younger than Vincent Richards of the U.S. was when he claimed the gold in Paris in 1924.

With dozens of spectators waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags at Court Philippe Chatrier or yelling “Vamos, Carlos!” on a cloudy afternoon — and a soundtrack provided during breaks in the action by a brass band in the stands — Alcaraz was dominant and never faced a break point.

Auger-Aliassime is a 23-year-old Canadian whose best showing at a major tournament was a semifinal appearance at the 2021 U.S. Open. Auger-Aliassime made it to that round back then when Alcaraz, just 18 at the time, stopped playing in the second set of their quarterfinal because of an injured leg muscle.

The Alcaraz on display during his Olympics debut is a much more finished product, someone who has won 12 consecutive matches at Roland Garros and collected a second consecutive title at Wimbledon last month, too.

Alcaraz defeated 24-time Slam champion Novak Djokovic in both of those finals at the All England Club, and there could be a rematch for the men’s gold on Sunday. That’s because Djokovic, a 37-year-old from Serbia, was scheduled to face Lorenzo Musetti of Italy in Friday’s second Olympic semifinal.

The women’s singles final is Saturday, with Zheng Qinwen of China playing against Donna Vekic of Croatia. Iga Swiatek of Poland and Anna Karolina Schmiedlova were scheduled to meet Friday for the bronze.

It was unclear how fit Djokovic would be for that match, because he felt what he described as “sharp pain” in his surgically repaired right knee while getting past Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals Thursday night. Musetti eliminated Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Alexander Zverev.

Paris Olympics

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Alcaraz never was troubled a bit in his semifinal, using his full array of talents — the speed, the booming groundstrokes, the touch at the net, and so on — to control things against Auger-Aliassime.

“It’s not a secret that, right now,” said Tommy Paul, the American who lost to the Spaniard in the quarterfinals, “Alcaraz is kind of like the golden standard.”

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games