French Open 2021, men’s final LIVE: Stefanos Tsitsipas up by break in second set against Novak Djokovic-Sports News , Firstpost

Novak Djokovic takes on Stefanos Tsitsipas in the 2021 French Open final. AP

As big a deal, as significant an accomplishment, as it was for Novak Djokovic to eliminate Rafael Nadal in the French Open semifinals, there is still another match to play in Paris.

And that four-set, four-hour-plus victory over 13-time Roland Garros champion Nadal really won’t mean much to Djokovic in the scheme of things if he can’t finish the job Sunday by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas, too.

He doesn’t enter Grand Slam tournaments to get to finals (this will be his 29th, 28 more than his much younger opponent).

He has made perfectly clear that all he really cares about at this stage of his career is winning them, and a victory over Tsitsipas would give the 34-year-old from Serbia a second French Open championship and, more importantly, a 19th major overall.

That would be Djokovic’s seventh title in a span of 11 Slams and move him within just one of the men’s-record 20 accumulated by his two great rivals, Roger Federer and Nadal.

Djokovic has won five of their previous seven encounters, although Tsitsipas did push him to five sets before losing in the semifinals of the 2020 French Open.

Novak’s the fourth-oldest finalist at Roland Garros in the Open era, which dates to 1968; the 22-year-old Tsitsipas is the youngest since Nadal won the title in 2008.

The age gap between Djokovic and Tsitsipas is the largest for a French Open men’s final since Mats Wilander, 17, defeated Guillermo Vilas, 29, in 1982.