A captivating 133rd edition of Wimbledon will always be remembered for delivering one its most momentous duels, the longest-ever gentlemen’s singles final that witnessed Novak Djokovic outlast his fellow legend Roger Federer over five sets and almost five hours of the most bewitching battle.
The day after Centre Court had truly fallen for a charismatic new ladies’ singles champion Simona Halep, who delivered a performance for the ages to sweep aside the seven-times champion Serena Williams 6-2, 6-2 in just 56 minutes, the two grass court masters Djokovic and Federer went toe-to-toe for five times as long until the only thing that could separate them was the first-ever tie-break at 12-12 to decide any Wimbledon or Grand Slam final.
It was breathtaking, record-breaking and ground-breaking. Utterly heart-breaking, too, for Federer, who saw two Championship points come and go before his quest to equal Martina Navratilova’s tally of nine Wimbledon singles titles and become the oldest men’s Grand Slam singles winner in the Open era at 37 was extinguished by the utterly indomitable five-time champion Djokovic.
Their thrilling denouement, played out amid perhaps the most amazing few minutes in British sport as England’s cricket men were simultaneously winning the World Cup in an equally nail-shredding climax against New Zealand 10 miles uptown at Lord’s, finally saw the Serb marathon man successfully defend his title 7-6(3), 1-6, 7-6(4), 4-6, 13-12(3) after four hours and 57 minutes.
It seemed an entirely fitting climax to a Championships which boasted a long-overdue Centre Court reprise of tennis’s finest match, 11 years after Federer and Rafael Nadal last did battle here, the delightful and astonishing arrival of a 15-year-old comet Cori Gauff to baptise the majestic new roofed No.1 Court and the emotional comeback of Sir Andy Murray, who enlisted the help of a rather special friend called Serena in his double doubles return.
Pride of place in this storybook Wimbledon, though, had to reside with Djokovic’s magnificently stubborn defence of his title in a final that showcased both his and Federer’s greatness.
To most eyes, the ageless Swiss seemed the better, more attacking force for four of the five sets, winning 14 more points, cracking 40 more winners, earning seven breaks to Djokovic’s three and being ahead in the key serving and receiving stats.
Yet it was a grand illusion. No stats could portray a champion’s superiority, just as in his previous two final wins here against Federer, in the crunch points, nor his tungsten resolve in the teeth of the crowd’s overwhelming sentimental support for the world’s most popular athlete. When the crowd chanted “Roger, Roger!”, Djokovic related afterwards, he internalised it that they were actually shouting “Novak, Novak!”
That special inner strength was obvious yet again when Federer, after two straight aces, held two Championship points at 8-7, 40-15 in the fifth but was unable to convert while the iron man just donned more armour plating.
Then for a third successive breaker, this time at 12-12 thanks to the rule Wimbledon introduced this year to prevent Isner-esque final sets, Djokovic, by now transfixing a peak of 9.6 million BBC viewers, proved too solid, too strong and too nerveless in this sudden-death showdown.
“I always try to imagine myself as a winner. I think there is a power to that," concluded the victorious Djokovic who, after collecting his trophy from HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, conceded this had been the most mentally demanding triumph of his career.
Still, it was impossible not to feel for Federer, who had become the first gentlemen’s singles finalist since Australian John Bromwich 71 years before to lose after holding Championship points. “I just feel like it's such an incredible opportunity missed,” he sighed. “I can't believe it.”
It was particularly deflating as he’d talked about his stars being aligned after another Fortnight in which, among another limousine load of records, he’d recorded a century of Wimbledon match wins before defeating Nadal in four sets in the semi-final, a wonderful 40th edition of ‘Fedal’ which was a worthy if belated sequel to their matchless 2008 ‘strokes of glory’ epic.
The Roland-Garros champion Nadal had earlier enjoyed his own measure of revenge over Nick Kyrgios in a wildly entertaining, no-love-lost, four-set, second round blockbuster, which saw the Australian maverick fire down maybe the slowest first serves ever seen at Wimbledon, two cheeky winning underarm efforts too dinky even for the speed gun to measure, and the fastest-ever recorded second serve at 143mph.
As the youthful men’s brigade faltered again with the likes of Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Denis Shapovalov all being despatched in the first round, the ‘big three’ rolled on so inexorably that, between them, Federer, Djokovic and Nadal have now won the last 11 Slams and 15 of the last 17 Wimbledons.
Yet in the ladies’ event, it really did feel like a guard-changing moment as Romanian Halep foiled Williams’ bid for a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam singles triumph with a performance so scintillating that Serena could only concede on court with a smile: “She literally played out of her mind!”
Suffering her third successive Grand Slam final defeat since her return to the tour, Williams has rarely looked, as she put it, so much like “a deer in headlights” as this, unable to cope with the supreme all-court speed, shotmaking at full pelt and athletic retrieving resilience of a 27-year-old who talked about feeling relaxed and ‘chilled’ but, frankly, again resembled the red-hot world No.1 and Roland-Garros champ that she started the year as. ‘Halepeno’ was an apt nickname here.
Her performance was only matched by the effortless way she enchanted everyone afterwards with her infectious, unalloyed joy at becoming Romania’s first Wimbledon singles champion in front of the one person she wanted to see in the Royal Box more than anyone else, “Kate. I like her,” she had beamed about the All England Club Patron.
And we all liked Simona so much that we could forgive her for ending another even bigger fairytale when ending Gauff’s adventures in Wimbledon wonderland in the last-16.
What a story, Cori! The world No.313 from Atlanta, given a wild card, came through three qualifiers in between taking school exams, drew five-times champion Venus Williams in a dream opening day contest on the new-look No.1 Court and outplayed the legend across the net whose own rise from ‘fenom’ she mirrored.
She then beat former Wimbledon semi-finalist Magdalena Rybarikova and, on her Centre Court debut, saved two match points en route to defeating Polona Hercog.
By which point, everyone was going loco about Coco. On court, ruthless and businesslike; off it, just a star-struck 15-year-old, giggling about her mom going viral for her courtside celebrations and dreaming of Beyonce watching her.
It was easy to forget she was actually younger than our two new junior champions, 16-year-old Shintaro Mochizuki, Japan’s first boys’ winner, and 17-year-old Ukrainian Daria Snigur.
They were along a parade of exceptional champions, headed by the three wheelchair tennis singles winners, Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez, Dutchwoman Aniek van Koot and Australian Dylan Alcott, who took the inaugural Quad title to complete the ‘Dylan Slam’ by holding all four Slam titles simultaneously.
And so to the return of Murray, seven months after we feared his career might be over. It was just a delight to see him resurface with his resurfaced hip to reach the second round in the gentlemen’s doubles with Pierre-Hugues Herbert and, to heaps more fanfare, the third round with Serena in the mixed.
So the dream outcome never materialised as Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah went on to become the first Colombians to triumph at Wimbledon in a thrilling gentlemen’s final, 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 7-6(6), 6-7(5), 6-3 over Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin that lasted exactly as long as the singles epic.
While Ivan Dodig and Latisha Chan lifted the mixed title, 33-year-old Czech Barbora Strycova, who had beaten Britain’s best, Johanna Konta, in the singles quarter-finals, took the Ladies’ doubles with Su-Wei Hsieh.
Yet the enduring memory will be of Andy and Serena having fun out there, making each other giggle and the rest of us smile. Only one thing we never did quite get to the bottom of. Was it Mur-ena? Or was it Ser-Andy? Who cared? It was simply the starriest double act Centre Court had ever savoured in a Championships we’ll always treasure.
