Olympics Men's Tennis Final: How to back Alcaraz to win Gold at 11/10

• Alcaraz's golden summer

• Novak fighting his way through

• If it goes to form 11/102.11 pick is the way to go

The men's Olympic draw has gone according to the form book with the top two seeds set to contest Sunday's Gold medal final.

As was the case at Wimbledon Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz have expertly guided their way to the tournament's end match, although they've arrived their in contrasting circumstances.

Perfect summer for Alcaraz

French Open and Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz is on a different level right now. The Spaniard has been unstoppable on the natural clay and grass surfaces this summer.

He has been rolling past opponents with ease this past week and he will start this final a heavy 2/51.40 favourite to defeat the most successful player of all time standing across the net.

Alcaraz deserves this starting point. In the Wimbledon final he took Djokovic to task, dominating the Serbian in three very easy sets. He has the attacking shots to outplay Novak and does not have the inferiority complex that opponents have shown in several of Djokovic's recent wins, with one after another unable to dispatch the legendary baseliner short of his physical best.

Despite being on an incredible run of form Alcaraz is not showing any signs of slowing down. He romped past Felix Auger-Aliassime for the loss of only two games and said in his post-match comments that he was happy with his extremely high level and that he was both well rested and had ample time to prepare between matches.

An Alcaraz with this form and confidence is going to be very hard to beat.

Rocky style run from Djokovic

You have to respect Djokovic's survival instincts and will to succeed. This summer his efforts would not have been out of place in a Rocky movie.

In the early rounds of the Olympics he was clearly protecting his movement, rolling past opponents in a low but controlled gear.

However, in his quarter-final match with Stefanos Tsitsipas it seemed that Djokovic had reaggravated the knee injury that he sustained in his match with Francisco Cerundolo at this summer's French Open. He has played the whole summer with a protective knee support since medial ligament surgery that followed his French Open withdrawal.

This tournament clearly means the world to Djokovic. An Olympics medal is the only remaining great accolade missing from his otherwise perfect career and if it hadn't been for a tilt at Olympic Gold you would imagine that he would have been better off resting up this summer.

It suggests to me that Djokovic will give everything he can to try and win Gold. However, he is a warranted underdog that is clearly struggling physically and is up against an opponent that beat him at a canter at Wimbledon.

I find it hard to believe that Djokovic's high desire to win is enough to overcome the divide that existed in Alcaraz's dominant 6/2 6/2 7/6 Wimbledon victory. You would be justified to argue that Alcaraz's advantage is even stronger on clay than on grass.

With that in mind the logical position is to back Alcaraz to win this comfortably. He is 11/102.11 to win this match in straight sets (-1.5 set handicap) and that is reasonable value to my eyes.

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