First Grand Slam men’s singles final to feature a final-set tie-break

Fifth-set tie-breaks at 12 games all were introduced to the men’s singles and doubles draws at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships to replace the rule that the final set must be won by two clear games. On 14 July 2019, the first-ever fifth-set tie-break in a Grand Slam men’s singles final was contested by Novak Djokovic (Serbia) and Roger Federer (Switzerland) with the score at 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6, 12-12. Djokovic took the tie-break 7-3 on points to claim his fifth Wimbledon singles title.

Final-set tie-breaks were first introduced to Grand Slam tennis at the US Open in 1970, with a first-to-seven-points game played at six games all (rather than Wimbledon’s newly adopted 12-12), although, as of 2019, no men’s singles final has required a fifth-set tie-break to date. In the women’s draw at Flushing Meadows, Martina Navratilova lost women’s singles finals on final-set tie-breaks in 1981 (the first-ever instance in a Grand Slam singles final) and 1985, going down 6-1, 6-7, 6-7 to Tracy Austin and 6-7, 6-1, 6-7 to Hana Mandlíková, respectively.

In 2019, the Australian Open adopted final-set tie-breaks, but with a first-to-10-points game at six games all. As of 2019, the French Open remains the only Grand Slam in which the final set must be won by two clear games.

In the third round of the men’s doubles at Wimbledon 2019, Henri Kontinen and John Peers won the first-ever final-set tie-break contested at SW19, coming through 7-6, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 13-12 (7-2) against Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury.

The final-set tie-break rule for Wimbledon was agreed by the All England Lawn Tennis Club following an epic 6-hr 36-min semi-final between Kevin Anderson and John Isner in 2018, featuring a 50-game final set (26-24 to Anderson) that alone lasted 2 hours 50 minutes. Providing the French Open eventually adopts the final-set tie-break, matches such as Nicolas Mahut’s incredible 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68 victory over John Isner in the first round at Wimbledon in 2010 – the longest professional/Grand Slam tennis match of all time – will be a thing of the past.