Tennis: Djokovic breezes past Nadal into Olympics third round

Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal played for the 60th time on Monday at the Paris Olympics, with the Serbian winning 6-1, 6-4.

With the one-sided victory, Djokovic moves into the third round and improves his odds of winning an elusive Olympic gold medal to $3 at tennis bookmakers.

While Nadal was far from his top level in the blockbuster second-round match, Djokovic produced some of his best tennis all season on Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Djokovic relieved after victory over Nadal

After Djokovic’s initial onslaught, Nadal launched a comeback.

Fuelled by raucous support from the French crowd, the Spaniard won four games in a row to level the second set at 4-4.

However, his opponent was too strong, with Djokovic pulling away to win in straight sets.

“I’m very relieved,” said Djokovic after his 31st win over Nadal.

“It looked like everything was going my way at 6-1, 4-0.

“I got maybe a little too confident at 4-1, played a sloppy service game.

“You can’t give away chances to Nadal because he’s going to come back, especially on this court, with this crowd. It was very tough.”

Djokovic went on to praise his own performance.

“It was a very, very close encounter, especially in the second set,” he said.

“But I’m very pleased with the way I played.

“It’s unfortunate for him that he wasn’t at his best, but I did everything I possibly could to make him uncomfortable on the court.”

Nadal critical of his performance

Nadal was less generous with himself, sharing candidly after the match that he was not good enough to defeat Djokovic.

“That’s a bad performance, I didn’t play well,” the 38-year-old told media in Paris.

“I was not able to put him in difficult positions.

“I was not able to have enough quality shots, enough quality movements so he was playing almost all the time from comfortable positions and he played quite well.

“Playing Novak without creating damage to him and without having the legs of 20 years ago, it is almost impossible.”

Alcaraz escapes, remains favourite for Olympic gold

Elsewhere in Olympic tennis action, second seed and bookmaker favourite Carlos Alcaraz continued his pursuit of a gold medal.

The 21-year-old was given a scare, however, fending off a set point in his second-round match against Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor.

He prevailed 6-1, 7-6(3) eventually and will face the unseeded Roman Safiullin in the third round.

Alcaraz is a $1.03 favourite at bookmaker Bet365 to beat Safiullin, while he is paying $1.66 to win gold.

Djokovic also takes on an unseeded player in the third round, with Germany’s Dominik Koepfer up next. He is a heavy favourite too, paying $1.04 for victory.

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