After the Championships were cancelled in 2020, Wimbledon tennis has been able to return this year. For the 2021 tournament, organizers are taking a cautious approach to planning the event, especially with tennis athletes and coaches arriving from all around the world. In fact, this year’s Wimbledon Championship is running at 50% grounds capacity based on current safety guidance and later potentially increasing over the finals weekend.
Now that many sporting events are starting to take place again, adult fans will also be able to place bets on their favourite players to win too. Wimbledon is perhaps the most high profile event in the tennis calendar. With the competition returning after being cancelled in 2020, the finals especially are expected to prove popular on leading sports betting platforms with fans who want to wager on matches.
Currently, the five players ranking top of the ATP Tour leaderboard for men’s singles are long-standing big hitters Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, as well as new generation players Daniil Medvedev, Dominic Thiem, and Stefanos Tsitsipas. Backing one of these players may seem like a safe bet, but when the time comes around it could be anyone’s match on the day as the world’s best battle it out to lift the coveted trophy.
The Championships at Wimbledon have taken place since 1877 and there have been 133 editions as of 2019. Now and again there are some memorable moments that truly stand out in the sport, from super long matches to outstanding player achievements. Here is a rundown of some of the best moments that have happened during the men’s singles at Wimbledon so far.
1. 2019 – The Championships saw its longest men’s final
In 2019, spectators had a glimpse of one of the most memorable final matches in the men’s singles. The match was between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, who were meeting again for the third time, and they both managed to create the longest final ever in Wimbledon history.
During the final, Djokovic drew on some of his best skills to claim victory after 4 hours and fifty-seven minutes. Despite the Serbian’s errors during the three tie breaks, he became the first player since Robert Falkenberg in the year 1948 to win the Wimbledon trophy after saving championship points in the final match, hence winning the longest final in history.
There are many fun facts and figures about Wimbledon, from the strict dress code to the number of tennis balls used during a single tournament. Another interesting fact is that the longest match ever played goes to a 2010 match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. Their game lasted an incredible 11 hours and five minutes. Spectators need not worry though, as the game took place over the course of three days. The match is not just the longest by time and number of games at Wimbledon, it’s also the longest professional game of tennis ever played.
2. 2013 – The end of the 77-year wait by Murray
In the men’s singles at Wimbledon, there have been quite a few UK players who have won the championships over the years. Players like William Renshaw, Wilfred Baddeley, Arthur Gore, John Hartley, and Joshua Pim have won multiple Wimbledon titles in their career.
However, in the modern era, UK tennis fans have not had a lot to celebrate, with no homegrown talent taking the title for a number of years. That is until 2013 when Andy Murray ended the huge wait for another UK player to win. Playing against Djokovic, Murray defeated him in three sets and became the first UK player to win the gentlemen’s singles trophy at Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.
3. 2017 – Federer makes Wimbledon history
Over the years there have been many successful players who have lifted the Championship trophy. And then there are an elite group of players who have won the Wimbledon tournament more than once. Currently, Roger Federer holds the title of the most Wimbledon Championships with an impressive eight titles. After his first win in 2003, Federer also managed to win the next four years straight. In the 2017 final he defeated Marin Cilic in one hour and forty-one minutes and became the first player in history to win eight gentlemen’s singles trophies at Wimbledon.
As well as eight wins, he has also appeared in the finals an impressive twelve times; making him the only player in history to have played the most finals too. Now aged 39, Federer is still keeping up with other top players in the men’s singles and is currently eighth in the ATP Tour rankings. With such an impressive career, Federer is regarded as one of the world’s best tennis players and has also been labelled as the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) in professional tennis. In response to this label, Federer himself has said that in tennis “There are many goats”.
4. 1985 – The youngest champion to ever win
Even after all these years, Wimbledon is still one of the world’s biggest sporting events that audiences tune in to watch every year. According to the official Wimbledon website, 2019 saw the Championships have their second-highest attendance record. For thirteen days, their overall attendance was 500,397 visitors. Fans come to watch players both old and new face each other to win the title. However, attendees in 1985 were able to witness a historic moment as Boris Becker became Wimbledon’s youngest ever men’s champion at age 17.
Becker defeated Kevin Curren in the men’s singles finals which made it his first career Grand Slam title as well as his first Wimbledon title. His win in 1985 was one of many firsts for that year. This Championship also marked him as the first unseeded winner of the singles title and it was also the first time that a German player had won the final too. In the same year, Martina Navratilova defeated Chris Evert Lloyd for her 6th Wimbledon singles title. In his career, Becker ended up winning the Wimbledon men’s singles title three times in 1985, 1986, and 1989.
5. 2008 – Nadal ending Federer’s Wimbledon streak
By 2008, Federer was well on his way to winning his sixth consecutive Wimbledon men’s singles title. However, in the final, he came up against another big name in the sport, Rafael Nadal. It just so happened that this would be the third Wimbledon final in a row that the two players were facing each other.
With Federer having won the pair’s previous two final showdowns, Nadal made it back to the finals to try again. He had returned to the Wimbledon courts in 2008, well prepared, and in the best form of his life. During the final match, which took 4 hours 48 minutes, Nadal outlasted the five-time champion 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, and 9-7 to emerge victorious. While it marked the end of Federer’s Wimbledon win streak for a while, it also marked Nadal’s first Wimbledon title.
Djokovic made a staggering zero unforced error’s in the three tiebreaks in the 2019 final. Not sure what “Despite the Serbian’s errors during the three tie breaks” means. But those tiebreaks gave him the match.