Djokovic continues chase for first gold medal at Paris Olympics

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a continued his pursuit of a first Olympic gold medal on Wednesday at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/scores/archive/paris/96/2024/results'Paris Olympics/a, where he moved past Germany’s a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/dominik-koepfer/ke73/overview'Dominik Koepfer/a 7-5, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals./p

pThe Serbian defeated rival a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/rafael-nadal/n409/overview'Rafael Nadal/a in straight sets in the second round and backed up his 31st win against the Spaniard with a dialled-in performance against Koepfer, advancing after one hour and 37 minutes./p

pThe No. 2 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, who has won a record 24 major titles and 40 ATP Masters 1000 crowns, is making his fifth Olympics appearance. Djokovic’s best result came in Beijing in 2008 when he won a bronze medal. The Serbian, who is eager to add an Olympic gold to his trophy cabinet, revealed he is loving his time in Paris./p

p"It is a great honour to represent my country at the Olympics. It is an incredible sporting event," Djokovic said. "We play a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/roland-garros/520/overview'Roland Garros/a every year in this stadium but the crowd, the atmosphere, the colours, everything is different. In a good way. The a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/roland-garros/520/overview'Roland Garros/a crowd is very knowledgeable and passionate about tennis but the Olympic crowd is something different./p

p"People from all over the world come to support their athletes and I think there are so many different nations and nationalities and it is beautiful to see. We are all celebrating sport and I am glad to still stay in the tournament."/p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Hunting for the ????a href="https://twitter.com/DjokerNole?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@DjokerNole/a records a 7-5 6-3 victory over Koepfer to reach the quarter-finals!a href="https://twitter.com/Olympics?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@Olympics/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Paris2024?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#Paris2024/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Tennis?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#Tennis/a a href="https://t.co/gtFztGqoTj"pic.twitter.com/gtFztGqoTj/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1818615225421070693?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"July 31, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

pIn hot Parisian conditions, Djokovic recovered from squandering a break advantage in the first set, grinding down the German in gruelling baseline rallies in the closing stages of the set to lead. The 37-year-old then won 95 per cent (19/20) of his first-serve points in the second set to reach the last eight in Paris./p

pDjokovic let out a roar after sealing victory on his first match point with a punched volley. He raised his arms to the sky to take in the embrace of the Serbian fans inside Court a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/philippe-chatrier/ci59/overview'Philippe Chatrier/a, where a number of Serbian flags were spread around the stadium./p

p"I am soaking wet. It is a very humid day, as it was yesterday. I just hope it rains so it cools down the temperature a bit, the air," Djokovic said. "It is the same for me and my opponent so you have to make the best out of it."/p

pDjokovic will next play eighth seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/stefanos-tsitsipas/te51/overview'Stefanos Tsitsipas/a after the Greek downed Argentine a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/sebastian-baez/b0bi/overview'Sebastian Baez/a 7-5, 6-1. Djokovic takes a 11-2 Lexus ATP Head2Head lead into his meeting with Tsitsipas, having won their past 10 meetings./p

p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p