Novak Djokovic won the Wimbledon championship for the second year in a row and fifth time overall yesterday, the top-seeded Serbian beating Number 2 Roger Federer of Switzerland in an epic five-set match that lasted nearly five hours and was the longest final in the history of Wimbledon. He said afterward, "Unfortunately in these kinds of matches, one of the players has to lose." Djokovic, who also notched his 16th Grand Slam trophy, fended off two match points at 8-7 in the final set, before going on to edge Federer 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3). He won on a tiebreaker, following a Wimbledon rule change this year to have a tiebreaker at 12-all in a deciding set.
Simona Halep won the women's championship a day earlier, the seventh-seeded Romanian claiming her first Wimbledon title and her second Grand Slam with an overwhelming 6-2, 6-2 straight set victory over Serena Williams in less than an hour. Williams, who needs one more Grand Slam championship to match Margaret Court's record of 24 for the most in tennis history, has now lost her third Grand Slam final in a row. Williams said afterward, "She literally played out of her mind. . . . It was a little bit 'a deer in the headlights' for me." Williams hasn't won a tournament since the 2017 Australian Open, when she was secretly early in her pregnancy. She then took more than a year off the tour, during which her daughter was born.
Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle attended Wimbledon together for the second year in a row Saturday, and Kate returned Sunday with Prince William for a courtside date. Kate’s sister Pippa also joined her and Meghan as they watched the Women’s Singles Final. After the match, Halep said that seeing Kate and Meghan gave her the “extra boost” she needed to defeat Williams.