Sports
Djokovic sets up gold-medal match with Alcaraz
PARIS — There they go again.
For the second time in three weeks, Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz will do battle for one of the biggest prizes in tennis.
When they meet in the Paris 2024 Olympics gold medal match at Roland Garros, on Sunday around 1 p.m. UK / 8 a.m. ET, they will open the latest chapter in their inter-generational duel.
The man atop the all-time tennis heap; the young buck ruling the current one.
Logic holds that there isn’t much time left for these sorts of battles, especially not at the Olympics. Djokovic is 37. As ageless as he can seem, it’s hard to see a gold-medal duel with Alcaraz happening in Los Angeles in four years’ time, though don’t put it past him.
Alcaraz, 21, seemingly has a decade or more of supremacy ahead of him, ready to be built on top of his domination of men’s tennis this spring and summer.
Alcaraz and Djokovic’s last meeting was the 2024 Wimbledon final (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
On Sunday they will do something that is becoming increasingly rare, even in the short time they have been facing each other at the top of the sport. They will play for a prize that neither of them has — and it isn’t a title at some random tour stop where both of them happen to be.
For Djokovic, the gold medal is the rare tennis bauble that he somehow doesn’t have. It’s all that’s missing from a mantle crowded with 24 Grand Slam titles, and a lonely bronze in singles from 2008 is all he has to show for his four previous appearances in the Olympic tournament.
He’s played professional tennis for 20 years. He’s played in 49 Grand Slam semifinals and won 37 of them. Until Friday evening against Lorenzo Musetti of Italy, he’d never won one at the Olympics. When he did, with a last, blasted forehand down the line, he collapsed on his back in the red clay.
He clutched his fists and fought to hold back his tears but lost that one, as the Serbian flags waved and the crowd chanted: “NOVAK, NOVAK!”
There is no way to overstate how much this tournament means to him, especially given that it looked like a pipe dream two months ago when he tore his meniscus on this same court and had to undergo an operation and a high-speed rehabilitation that both risked and saved his summer.
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For Alcaraz, it’s the next piece of hardware accumulation that will allow him to, as he put it last month at Wimbledon, “sit at that table” with Djokovic and the rest of the all-time greats. He has a chance to become one of three players to win the French Open, Wimbledon and the Olympic tournament in the same year. Rafael Nadal and Steffi Graf are the others.
“Two legends from sport,” Alcaraz said. “I will try not to think of every stat, the things I could achieve.”
On Friday he played as though he already has a place setting at that table — or maybe even owned it — blowing through Felix Auger Aliassime 6-1, 6-1 with a frightening ferocity that he has recently acquired, especially in the latter stages of tournaments.
In bright sunshine and swelteringly humid air at Roland Garros on Friday, both sets followed a pattern to a tee, as if Alcaraz had scripted them. Lose a game while returning; win a game on serve. In the second set, the other way round. Then, spend five games pulling Auger-Aliassime all about the court, discombobulating his game plan until he’s throwing in new ideas like he has to do, but not having any of them work, getting more and more confused until he looks across the net and it’s 1-5 and it’s over.
Alcaraz has pushed his level higher and higher throughout the tournament (Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images)
He basically did this same thing to Auger-Aliassime, a deceptively excellent clay court player, on this same court back in the fourth round of the French Open in June. Auger-Aliassime is just 23, only a few years removed from being considered destined for big titles.
Now he is looking at years of afternoons like Friday coming at him. No fun.
“I knew I had to start the match well, really focusing on every point, trying to play with a lot of intensity,” Alcaraz said. “I didn’t think it was going to be like that.”
Djokovic played a different kind of all-time great tennis. He survived an increasingly dangerous opponent, one night after a few bad steps had him wondering if he’d done his knee again during his quarterfinal win over Stefanos Tsitsipas. “Very worried,” he had said, after suffering sharp pain that only subsided with the help of painkillers during that match.
He had the knee examined Friday but appeared to moving without hindrance for most of the night. On Thursday, he said he was going to “ pray to God for everything to be OK.” Those prayers were seemingly answered.
Djokovic and Musetti, who played in the semifinals at Wimbledon last month, played full-gas, big-boy tennis for most of two hours. Djokovic’s chest heaved after points, just as it did last time they met on this court, when they contested the latest finish in French Open history.
He had to take extra time to catch his breath and got a warning and a first-serve penalty for it, and then a code violation warning after an exchange with the chair umpire, Jaume Campistol.
Djokovic and Campistol during their showdown (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
This was what stressed out Djokovic looks like — the Djokovic who wants something desperately, something rare and unfamiliar, and wants it badly enough that his nerves begin to sap his energy. He yelled at his Serbian coaches and teammates repeatedly, imploring them to make more noise and give him the boost he needed.
Musetti matched him shot for shot until the final points of the first set, he hit an easy putaway right back and Djokovic, who paddled it back and somehow won the point. A sloppy drop shot from Musetti gave Djokovic the lead he so rarely relinquishes, and he didn’t start to do so Friday, winning 6-2 despite losing his serve twice in the second set. His head-to-head against Musetti, who always seems to test Djokovic, is now at 7-1.
That ascent to the top of the all-time tennis heap has accumulated a lot of scar tissue, creating a generation of players who, where Djokovic perceives a chain of victories, they see one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of their feet. No more was this in evidence than against Tsitsipas, who led an ailing Djokovic 4-0 and then 5-3, 40-0 in their second set, before withdrawing into himself and withering.
Djokovic knows that what is coming next is his own recent catastrophe, a test against the player who served him a chastening reminder of reality at the All England Club just weeks ago. Still, the Serbian is able to refer to Alcaraz as part of “the next, next, next, generation”, his half-sneering shorthand for how many have come before only to have him swat them away. He knows Alcaraz (as well Italian Jannik Sinner, who skipped the Olympics with tonsilitis) are different, playing at a level he has not been able to reach all year.
He knows he’s going to need to get there, somehow, and he knows that he needs to convince himself that it’s possible, just as he once convinced himself he could overtake Nadal and Roger Federer.
It’s the only way to get just about the only thing he does not have.
Additional reporting by James Hansen
(Daniela Porcelli/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
For years, Stephen A. Smith’s many football blunders have been easy enough to explain away.
He’s not an NFL guy (remember when he said the three key players for a game were three guys who weren’t playing in the game?)
Stephen A. Smith falsely claimed the Warriors haven’t made the playoffs since 2022, but Golden State reached the second round in both 2023 and 2025. (Jerome Miron/Imagn Images)
He’s definitely not a college football guy (remember when he called Jalen Milroe Jalen “Milroy” multiple times and then read the wrong stat line after a College Football Playoff game?).
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ESPN forces him into those conversations because First Take has to talk football, and Smith knows that football is the most popular sport in the country and he needs to be seen as an authority (even though he isn’t).
But Monday’s latest mistake is a lot tougher to excuse, because this time Smith wasn’t talking about the NFL or college football. He was talking about the Golden State Warriors, one of the defining NBA dynasties of the last decade.
In other words, he was talking about the sport and the league that’s supposed to be his bread and butter.
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While discussing whether Steve Kerr has coached his last game with Golden State, Smith confidently stated the Warriors “haven’t been back to the playoffs since that championship in 2022.”
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr looks on during a game against the Sacramento Kings. (Robert Edwards/Imagn Images)
That’s not even close to true. Not only did Golden State make the playoffs last season, but they also reached the postseason in 2023. Last year, the Warriors made the playoffs, beat the Rockets in seven games and advanced to the second round before losing to the Timberwolves. In 2023, they beat the Sacramento Kings in the first round and before losing to the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals.
So, Smith wouldn’t even have been right if he said they haven’t won a playoff series since 2022. But he didn’t say that. He said they didn’t make the playoffs in any of the past four years, except they did it twice.
Yikes.
This is not an obscure piece of NBA trivia that Smith could be easily forgiven for not knowing. Perhaps he was too busy playing solitaire on his phone and just missed two of the past three NBA postseasons. That’s a tough look for the guy who fancies himself as the No. 1 NBA analyst in the country.
And it’s a terrible look for ESPN, as they keep selling Smith as one of the faces of their NBA coverage.
Stephen A. Smith made a brutal gaffe while talking Warriors playoff history
If Smith made this kind of mistake while talking about the NFL, nobody would be shocked. At this point, sports fans practically expect him to butcher football analysis. It’s almost endearing that a guy with the ego of Smith can be so consistently wrong while also delivering every “fact” with the utmost confidence. It’s part of the Stephen A. experience.
But this one hits differently because the NBA is where he’s supposed to at least know the basics. This is where Smith prides himself as being an authority figure.
Stephen A. Smith incorrectly stated the Golden State Warriors haven’t made the playoffs since their 2022 championship, despite the team reaching the postseason twice since then. (Candice Ward/Imagn Images)
And yet he couldn’t keep the recent playoff history of the Warriors straight. The team whose head coach is in the news every other week. The team that has won four championships since 2014. Arguably one of the most important franchises in the NBA over the past 15 years.
Yes, Golden State missed the playoffs in 2024 after getting bounced in the Play-In Tournament (although they won 46 games that season). And yes, it fell short again this season. But that’s a lot different from acting like Steve Kerr has spent four years wandering the basketball wilderness since winning that 2022 title.
He hasn’t. In fact, the team is 175-153 in the past four regular seasons.
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The Warriors made the second round in 2023. They made the second round again in 2025.
Before burying Steve Kerr on national television, maybe Stephen A. Smith could take 10 seconds to confirm whether the Warriors were actually, you know, in the playoffs.
A legendary NFL coach found linebacker Rod Martin not by scouting him at USC, but almost by accident.
The Oakland Raiders had a throwaway 12th-round pick in the 1977 draft, and then-coach John Madden grew frustrated hearing his personnel executives contemplate using it on a basketball player or track guy. Finally, Madden blurted out that he could find a random kid walking around the USC campus in sandals who could make more of an impact than that.
“Ron Wolf says, ‘All right, smart guy,’” recalled Madden’s son, Mike. “So they were a couple picks away and dad goes, ‘Let me call [USC coach] John Robinson.’”
Robinson had one question: Has Rod Martin been drafted?
Raiders linebacker Rod Martin stands on the field during a game against the Buffalo Bills on Dec. 6, 1987, at the Coliseum.
(Mike Powell / Getty Images)
“Dad goes, ‘What position does he play?’” the younger Madden said. “Robinson tells him Martin is a linebacker, and dad goes, ‘Good. Tough guy we can knock around in training camp. Have him run down on kicks.’ And Robinson says, ‘No, John. Rod Martin will make your team.’”
Martin did a lot more than make the team. He would go on to set a Super Bowl record with three interceptions in one of the most dominant defensive performances in championship history.
Martin, who would play his entire 12-year career with the Oakland then Los Angeles Raiders, is dead at age 72. The Raiders announced his death Monday but did not specify a cause of death.
“The Raiders family is deeply saddened by the passing of Rod Martin, a standout linebacker and key player on two Super Bowl championship teams,” read a team statement.
The franchise called Martin, “a beloved member of the Raiders Family and a favorite of Raiders fans everywhere.”
A two-time Super Bowl winner and a two-time Pro Bowl selection, Martin saved his best game for the biggest stage. In Super Bowl XV at the Louisiana Superdome, he intercepted Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Ron Jaworski three times in a 27-10 Raiders victory.
“What I remember about Rod was his ability to diagnose and react,” Jaworski said by phone Monday. “In the Super Bowl, he makes two phenomenal plays. He has three interceptions, but interceptions one and two — I’d like to say they were bad decisions on my part. They weren’t. I tried to squeeze throws in. He just made a great play. He was a great athlete.”
Three years later, Martin was still a key component to the Raiders’ defense in a Super Bowl victory over Washington. He had a sack of quarterback Joe Theismann, a fumble recovery, and a fourth-and-one stop of John Riggins late in the third quarter of a 38-9 blowout.
Born in Welch, W. Va., the son of a coal miner grew up in Los Angeles and attended Hamilton High before going on to play at Los Angeles City College and USC. The NFL saw him as a tweener, too small for linebacker at 210 pounds and too slow to play safety. Clearly, that was a faulty assessment.
Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon was two years behind Martin at Hamilton, and the two remained friends throughout the decades that followed.
“We met when I was a sophomore,” Moon said. “He was a senior — middle linebacker, fullback and center on the basketball team. He was the ultimate athlete. At the time I was there, I looked up to him quite a lot.
“He wasn’t the biggest guy in the world, but he was big enough. He had the strongest hands and the strongest forearms. He could just take a tight end or whoever came to block him, grab his pads, shove him off and go make the play. He was just a real solid player.”
It was those hands that grabbed an opportunity with the Raiders and didn’t let go.
“So dad goes marching into the draft room,” Madden said, “looks at Ron and everybody else and says, ‘We’re going to take Rod Martin, linebacker, USC.’ And they did.”
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New details have emerged surrounding the arrest of former Georgia wide receiver Zachariah Branch, who is facing two misdemeanor charges following a run-in with law enforcement just days ahead of the NFL Draft.
Branch, who is a projected second-round pick, was arrested early Sunday morning in Athens, Georgia, and charged with two counts of obstructing public sidewalks/streets – prowling and obstruction of a law enforcement officer.
Georgia Bulldogs wide receiver Zachariah Branch celebrates after a touchdown catch against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Nov. 28, 2025. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)
He was released after more than two hours in jail after posting $39 in bonds.
The NFL Network obtained the police report from Branch’s arrest, which described an encounter over an alleged sidewalk incident with law enforcement, in which police alleged that the former Bulldogs star failed “to comply with multiple verbal lawful commands.”
“A male, later identified as Zacharia Branch, continued to stand on the sidewalk without making an attempt to move. I continued to give Zacharia Branch verbal commands to move from blocking the sidewalk and advised that if he did not, he would receive a citation for blocking the sidewalk,” the excerpt from the report read.
Georgia wide receiver Zachariah Branch runs during the NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind., on Feb. 28, 2026. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)
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“Zacharia Branch smirked, then stepped backwards and to the right, then remained standing upon the public sidewalk, so as to obstruct, hinder, and impede free passage upon the sidewalk as well as impede free ingress/egress to or from the adjacent places of business,” the report continued.
“Due to those actions and Zacharia Branch’s failure to comply with multiple verbal lawful commands, he was placed under arrest for misdemeanor Obstruction of LEO and received a citation for Obstructing Public Sidewalks.”
Georgia wide receiver Zachariah Branch celebrates with wide receiver Colbie Young after scoring a touchdown against Ole Miss during the Sugar Bowl at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, La., on Jan. 1, 2026. (IMAGN)
Branch transferred after two seasons at Southern California and immediately became quarterback Gunner Stockton’s favorite target. He finished the season with a team-high 811 receiving yards and six receiving touchdowns.
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His status as a projected second-round pick was bolstered after an impressive showing at the combine, where he clocked a 4.35-second 40-yard dash.
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