Paris Olympics 2024 Day 9 Highlights: Djokovic wins tennis Gold; Belgium, Australia eliminated in hockey

2:30 PM: Shooting - Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka in the skeet mixed team qualification.

01:30 PM: Table tennis - India vs Romania in the women's team round of 16 event.

03:25 PM: Athletics - Kiran Pahal in women's 400m heats.

03:45 PM: Sailing - Nethra Kumanan in women's dinghy race 9 and 10.

06:00 PM: Badminton (Medal Event) - Lakshya Sen vs Lee Jia Zii (Malaysia) in the men's singles bronze medal match.

06:10 PM: Sailing - Vishnu Saravanan in the men's dinghy race 9 and 10.

06:30 PM:  Wrestling - Nisha Dahiya in the women's 68kg freestyle pre-quarterfinals followed by quarterfinals and semifinals. 

10:31 PM: Athletics - Avinash Sable in men's 3000m steeplechase heats.

Netherlands defeat the Tokyo 2024 silver medalist Australia by 2-0 to enter the semi-finals.

Netherlands will face Spain in the semi-final with the latter beating the defending champions Belgium in the second quarter-final. 

Spain stun the defending champion and the world no.1 Belgium in the men's hockey quarter-final. 

Spain win by 3-2 to enter the semi-finals. 

1. Steffi Graf (Germany) in 1988
2. Andre Agassi (USA) in 1999
3. Rafael Nadal (Spain) in 2010
4. Serena Williams (USA) in 2012
5. Novak Djokovic (Serbia) in 2024

Novak Djokovic wins the second set on tiebreak and the match by 7-6, 7-6 to claim his first-ever gold.

Novak Djokovic also becomes the only fifth tennis player to make the Career Golden Slam.

Another tiebreak as both Djokovic and Alcaraz finish the second set 6-6. 

Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz are producing one of the most memorable finals as they fails to break each other's serves in the second set as well. 

It's 4-4.

Both Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz are not able to break each other's serves as the Spaniard leads the second set by 2-1 with two serves.

Novak Djokovic wins the opening set by 7-6 after winning the tiebreak 7-3. A 1-0 lead for the Serbian legend. 

First set goes to a tiebreak after Novak Djokovic wins his sixth game to level 6-6. 

Both Vijayveer Sidhu and Anish failed to finish in the top six of the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men's Qualification.

Vijayveer finishes 9th with a 583-26x score and Anish scored 582-22x to finish 13th.

Djokovic holds it. Alcaraz had four break points but could not convert on any of them. Djokovic holds to lead 5-4

Both the players are holding their serves and it is evenly poised at 4-4 as Alcaraz holds for a love

On a serve, Djokovic takes the third game to take a 2-1 lead in the first set.

Novak Djokovic comes from behind to take the second game to tiebreak but Carlos Alcaraz wins the game after three breakpoint and levels the score to 1-1. A thrilling start for the final. 

In his quest for an Olympic gold, Novak Djokovic takes the opening game 40-30 on serve and leads Carlos Alcaraz in the first set. 

Carlos Alcaraz defeated the 24-time grand slam winner in the Wimbledon 2024 final last month to equal his head-to-head record to 3-3.

Who will take the lead today?

Maheshwari Chauhan finishes 14th (out of 29) after a poor show in the final round and misses out on the skeet finals.

The world no.2 Novak Djokovic and no.3 Carlos Alcaraz clash in the men's singles final next in one of the biggest events at the Paris Olympics 2024. 

After a heartbreaking loss to Viktor Axelsen in the semi-final, India's ace shuttler Lakshya Sen next faces the seventh-seeded Zii Jia Lee of Malaysia for a bronze medal match tomorrow at 6:00 pm.

Lakshya Sen was leading the set for the most part before the reigning Olympic champion Axelsen made a stunning recovery to win the first set 22-20. Lakshya had Axelsen under the pump but not for a prolonged duration.

Almost neck-and-neck but Lakshya is not letting Axelsen breathe easy, which can't be said about his opponents most often.

Lakshya Sen is in action in the men's singles semi-final against Viktor Axelsen. It has been a steady start for the Indian shuttler against the World No. 2.

India's campaign in boxing comes to an end as Lovlina Borgohain lost to China's top-seed Li Qian on a 4-1 decision in women's 75kg weight category.

India have beaten Great Britain 4-2 in the shootout as the wall PR Sreejesh saved twice to help India get through to the semis.

The 10-man Indian team was able to hold Great Britain to a 1-1 scoreline. Without one of their star defenders for 42 minutes of quarters, it was one of the strongest defence performances by India. Can India prevail in the shootout?

PR Sreejesh, the Indian hockey wall, has saved it for his side yet again and scoreline stays 1-1.

India would feel lucky to have escaped to see the scoreline 1-1 after the third quarter considering how aggressive GB were, especially in terms of their circle entries and earning PCs.

India haven't been able to maintain possession of the ball and Great Britain have constantly been getting the circle entries. GB got three penalty corners in not much time and India have been able to save all three of them.

A lucky escape for India as the British player's late touch hit the pole and Sreejesh got enough time to send the ball away. The scoreline remains 1-1.

India's Anish Bhanwala has also hit a 293/300, equal to Vijayveer in Stage I. Both will compete in Stage II at 4:30 PM IST for the final qualification.

Lee Morton has successfully breached the 'PR Sreejesh' wall to help Great Britain score a field goal and the scoreline is level now 1-1.

Captain Harmanpreet Singh has converted a penalty corner for India finally as the 10-man India open the scoring and get on the board. India 1-0 ahead in the second quarter.

Carolina Marin has retired due to injury and hence China's He Bing Jiao will be playing the Gold Medal match against An se Young of Korea.

Amit Rohidas has been shown the red card and India are down to just 10 men for the entirety of the game as the umpires deemed it intentional. India have lost their quality defender and first rusher.

India, like GB, got three penalty corners as well in the first quarter, but failed to convert any of them as scoreline remained 0-0.

Parul Chaudhary finishes 8th in her heat in Round 1 with a season-best of 9.23.39. However, she wasn't able to qualify for the final as only five can qualify for one heat.

Indian defenders will need to be on their toes a bit more as the Great Britain players have pierced the D on a few occasions but the 'Wall' PR Sreejesh was on the money and the scores stay 0-0.

Amit Rohidas has made two consecutive saves after Great Britain earned back-to-back penalty corners but failed to convert. 

Line-ups confirmed and anthems done. It's whistle time at the Hockey quarter-final between India and Great Britain.

Maheshwari Chauhan, continues her superb start in the fourth round with a perfect 23/23 so far having finished eighth in the first qualification round.

The Indian men's hockey team is in action in the quarter-final against Great Britain with an eye on the spot in the semi-finals.

Carolina Marin vs He Bing Jiao - a proper dogfight on show in the second women's singles semi-final.

Korea's An Se Young has beaten Indonesia's Gregoria Tunjung 11-21, 21-13, 21-16 to qualify for the final and the Gold medal match but not before the latter put up a spirited fightback, especially after losing the second set. 

Anish Bhanwala is set to shoot in the third relay in the first stage. The second stage of the Olympics qualification will take place at 4:30 PM IST.

Vijayveer Sidhu scores 293/300 in Stage I and is third among the eight shooters done with the first stage. A 97 in the third round hurt his chances a bit. However, there's one more stage left for him to better his scoring to qualify in the top 6.

-There are two stages separated into three, where the shooters shoot a series of five shots each, at targets that are next to each other.

-First, the interval between shots is eight seconds, then a six-second interval in the second series, and a four-second interval in the third.

-The top six shooters from the qualifiers make it to the final.

Serbia's Novak Djokovic will be up against Spain's Carlos Alcaraz for the Gold Medal in men's singles tennis. There're a number of swimming events, men's doubles final in badminton and men's 100m final among the big events for the day.

For India, the day begins with Golf and Shooting. Vijayveer Sidhu and Anish Bhanwala will be taking part in the men's 25m rapid fire pistol qualification at 12:30 PM while Shubhankar Sharma and Gaganjeet Bhullar are in the final round of the men's individual golf event. Maheshwari Chauhan and Raiza Wilson will be next at 1 PM IST in the women's skeet qualification. Parul Chaudhary will later be in action in women's 3000m qualification followed by Jeswin Aldrin in long jump.

The win after 52 years against Australia at the Olympics was a watershed moment for Harmanpreet Singh and his troops. However, that win and performance will have a meaning only if the Indian hockey team progresses further in the competition. Their first opponent is Great Britain, who are yet to lose in the Games so far... Can India make it to the semis?

Boxing may be on its last legs in the Olympics and for good as the arbitration and ambiguity in scoring and judging in the sport isn't helping either the quality of the sport or its viewership. India has already been on the wrong side of it twice in the ongoing Games and Lovlina Borgohain, the last hope will be facing the top seed from China Li Qian in another tough bout in the quarter-finals.

In 2022, Lakshya beat Axelsen for the only time at the German Open to diminish the Danish shuttler's status from God-level to God-like. Lakshya stretched Axelsen to a third set earlier this year in Singapore to show that the latter can be beaten. But for that, Lakshya has to be on his mark right from the start. Players like Axelsen can't be given a sniff. Challenge is as big as opportunity for Lakshya. A first-ever Olympic medal... can he pull off the unthinkable?

Yes, it is no mean feat what Lakshya Sen has been able to achieve so far, making it to semis what no male singles player was able to achieve in the past for India. Being one set behind, Lakshya put in a performance to be proud of by winning the remaining two sets against Chinese Taipei's Chen Chou to win his quarter-final encounter. But on Sunday, he faces his biggest nightmare, the Danish god-like creature of modern badminton, Viktor Axelsen.

Welcome to our live coverage of Day 9 at the Paris Olympics for the Indian contingent as well as some other big events on the day around the world. Saturday was a day of India falling short very close to medal positions in multiple events and there will be a hope that the near misses turn into medal event qualifications for the contingent.