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.

 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)

Aaron Judge might break the American League home run record again.

The New York Yankees slugger belted his 40th home run of the season Friday, becoming the first player to do so in the majors this season.

He did it in grand style, launching it 477 feet into the left field bleachers at Yankee Stadium.

It was a two-run blast off Kevin Gausman, the sixth he’s hit off the Toronto Blue Jays right-hander, to drive in his 100th and 101st runs of the season.

Since May 3, Judge is hitting .377 with 34 home runs and a 1.338 OPS.

It’s quite a turnaround for Judge. On May 2, he was hitting just .197, and Yankee fans were clamoring for him to be benched.

The New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge celebrates hitting a home run during the first inning against the Toronto Blue Jays Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

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Despite that pitiful start, he still leads the major leagues in homers, RBIs, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, OPS+ and total bases. His .318 batting average is also third in baseball.

Judge is on pace for 58 home runs this season, and he is likely to join Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez as the only players in MLB history to hit 50 homers in three different seasons.

But his 162-game pace since May 5 is 72, so the record he set in 2022 with 62 homers is within reach. 

Judge is in the second year of a nine-year, $360 million deal he signed after that season. His $40 million annual average value is the most ever given to a position player, although teammate Juan Soto might surpass that this offseason.

That contract looked scary last year because Judge missed a chunk of the season due to a toe injury after crashing into a concrete portion of the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium. He was hitting .291 with a 1.078 OPS at the time of the injury, but he hit just .238 after returning.

New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge (99) celebrates his two-run home run against the Toronto Blue Jays with right fielder Juan Soto (22) during the first inning at Yankee Stadium.  (Brad Penner/USA Today Sports)

But it doesn’t seem like fans need to worry much anymore.

The Yankees have won five straight after going on an 11-24 skid to follow a 50-22 start. Entering Friday, they were tied with the Baltimore Orioles, who are on a skid of their own, for the AL East lead.

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The Chargers will get their first chance to test their kickoff and kickoff return approach to the NFL’s dynamic rule change in live action Sunday against the Rams during their joint practice.

“We’re going to get work in … whether that be against the Chargers, the Rams or whoever it may be,” special teams coordinator Ryan Ficken said. “We want to make sure we are working our technique. Otherwise, we won’t get a good look.”

The new rules have required some adjustments throughout the offseason, but Ficken’s approach is to keep the techniques simple as players adapt to the new format.

The kicking team is lined up on the opposing team’s 40, and the receiving team can line up five to 10 yards away. Nobody along the lines is permitted to move until the return team touches the ball or it hits the ground.

“Right now, we’re feeling good in terms of technique and laying the foundation, continuing to work on the fundamentals,” said Ficken.

Ficken emphasized that the goal for the kickoff and return units is to allow the players’ athleticism to shine, enabling them to execute without worrying too much about the new rules.

“We want to make sure it’s natural,” Ficken said.

This offseason, Ficken had the team watch film of the XFL, which ran a version of this kickoff rule, as well as Thursday’s preseason opener between the Chicago Bears and Houston Texans.

“I thought the kickoffs were a lot faster,” Ficken said. “It was good to see two different teams go at it and observe what they’ve been working on, what works and what doesn’t work.”

Kicker Cameron Dicker said he has adjusted to the new dynamic kickoff rules, changing his approach to kicks throughout camp. Instead of high deep balls with maximum hang time, he focuses on placement for the cover team to pursue.

Ficken praised Dicker’s adaptability, hinting at a bag of tricks unlike anything he has seen.

“He can execute all types of kicks, whatever you need him to do,” Ficken said. “He can be a weapon.”

Kicking under the new format feels more like “shanking” a kickoff than doing a squib kick, as Dicker put it.

“That’s almost the goal,” Dicker said. “Get it to land early so the returner can’t get to it, and hopefully, it dribbles through.”

Dicker added, “Try to drive it out there and hope for the best.”

While not experimenting with different kicking styles, Dicker does enjoy miss-hitting the ball, “almost hitting it off the ankle for fun and seeing what happens.”

“It’s going to be interesting once Week 1 comes around to see the first person who tries something strange,” Dicker said.

On the return team, Derius Davis will again handle kick returns, coming off a season in which he returned 17 kicks for 374 yards, ranking 11th in the league.

Davis, an All-Pro rookie punt returner last season, likens returning kicks under the new rules to playing running back. He noted the new rules don’t allow for much hang time, and anticipates seeing more kicks on the ground than in the air.

“It’s definitely different,” Davis said, “because everything happens much faster since the return teams’ drops aren’t as deep.”