Kerber fairytale over

Alcaraz against Safiullin from 13.30 LIVE

Carlos Alcaraz(Bild: AFP)

Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz have reached the quarter-finals at the Olympic Games in Paris. Meanwhile, German Angelique Kerber's tennis career came to an end.  

The Serb defeated Dominik Koepfer from Germany 7:5, 6:3 in the round of 16 on Wednesday. The 24-time Grand Slam winner will face Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas in the last eight on his way to his long-awaited first Olympic gold medal. Top favorite Alcaraz defeated the Russian Roman Safiullin 6:4, 6:2.

Read the Alcaraz match statistics here:

Djokovic, who only had surgery on his right knee at the beginning of June, had more problems than in the previous round against clay court king Rafael Nadal. The 37-year-old had dominated the record-breaking Spanish French Open champion for long stretches. This time, the Serb only narrowly escaped a tie-break in the first set, partly because Koepfer made a few too many mistakes in the decisive phase. In the second set, an early break brought the preliminary decision in favor of the "Djoker".

Bitter end to Kerber's career
Safiullin was unable to cause any problems for his biggest rival for gold, the Spaniard Alcaraz. The 21-year-old Iberian will now face the American Tommy Paul in the quarter-finals. Today, Wednesday (7.00 pm), Alcaraz will play the doubles quarter-final with Rafael Nadal. His opponents will be Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram from the USA.

Novak Djokovic(Bild: AP)

German Angelique Kerber's tennis career came to an end after a tough battle in the quarter-finals. The three-time Grand Slam winner was narrowly defeated by China's Zheng Qinwen 7:6(4),4:6,6:7(6) in the third set tie-break.