The Paris 2024 Olympics tennis competition has reached the stage where the first medals are handed out as the women’s singles and mixed doubles gold medals are up for grabs on a day where the rest of the semi-finals across the event take place.
The event is still reeling from the shock that Iga Swiatek will only play for a bronze medal on Friday while Novak Djokovic will be looking to set up his own shot at gold on what looks to be a brilliant day of tennis.
Men’s Singles
We have the two semi-finals in the men’s draw on Friday so all four players on show know they will be competing for a medal over the weekend and they will find out which colour they are going for over the course of the day. The opening semi-final sees the French Open champion Carlos Alcaraz looking to remain on track for a Roland Garros double in the same year when he goes up against Felix Auger-Aliassime while the night session semi-final sees Novak Djokovic looking to go a win away from that elusive gold medal when he meets Lorenzo Musetti.
The first semi-final doesn’t really interest me too much largely because FAA has played a lot of tennis this week given that he’ll compete for a mixed doubles medal later in the day but the other semi-final certainly does. Given that Lorenzo Musetti has led Djokovic 2-0 and 2-1 in two different meetings with the Serb on this Philippe Chatrier Court, the Italian would have fancied his chances anyway but Djokovic seemed to aggravate his knee issue in the quarter final win over Stefanos Tsitsipas and he certainly sounded concerned about it in his post-match interview. He did confirm in that interview that he would defy medical advice and play this semi-final anyway because this is his last chance for Olympic gold but Musetti on this surface is a problem. Djokovic won their last meeting 3-0 at Wimbledon but Musetti might still be wondering how he didn’t win a set on that occasion. He’ll give this a right good go and if Djokovic is hampered then the 15/8 on the in form Italian is just too big.
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Women’s Singles
The start of the medals matches in the women’s singles come along on Friday with the bronze medal on the line where we have a surprise entrant in the form of Iga Swiatek who was the overwhelming favourite for the gold prior to running into Qinwen Zheng in the semi-final on Thursday. All eyes will be on the world number one to see if the bronze medal means anything to her or whether the adrenalin will leave her now that she can’t get what she came for.
There certainly won’t be any of those doubts over her opponent in Anna-Karolina Schmiedlova who is having the week of her life and if she can cause what would be a seismic upset then she would walk off with a bronze medal that few would have thought was possible a week ago. The Slovakian has played really well this week and has taken care of both of the Wimbledon finalists before going down to Donna Vekic in the semi-final but she looked like there was little left in the tank in that match and I wouldn’t want to side with her. I’m happy to leave this alone.
Doubles
It is a big day of action in the doubles competitions too where the mixed doubles draws to a close with both the medal matches as well as the second semi-final in the men’s doubles and both semis of the ladies doubles also taking place as pairs set up the chance to win a medal over the weekend or go for one in the case of the mixed doubles. The mixed doubles final will see Tomas Machac and Katerina Siniakova taking on Zhizhen Zhang and Xinyu Wang where the Czechs look pretty worthy favourites.
There isn’t a huge amount of value around in the doubles draws on Friday in truth. I did want to get against Felix Auger-Aliassime and Gabriella Dabrowski in the bronze medal match in the mixed doubles with FAA having a likely tough assignment against Carlos Alcaraz earlier in the day after a near three hour quarter final on Thursday but the bookmakers are all over the Dutch pair in that one. Matthew Ebden and John Peers could be value outsiders against Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul in the men’s doubles semi-final but the American pair were so good in ending the career of Andy Murray on Thursday night that I can leave that alone.
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