Youngest male tennis player to win a match in the main singles draw at Wimbledon

Qualifier Boris Becker (Germany, b. 22 November 1967) was 16 years 216 days old when he won his first-round match against America’s Blaine Willenborg at Wimbledon on 25 June 1984.

Becker defeated Nduka Odizor in Round 2 before retiring in the fourth set of his third-round match against Will Scanlon. Twelve months later, however, an unseeded Becker would return to Wimbledon and lift the trophy, defeating Kevin Curren 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 in the final on 7 July 1985. At 17 years 227 days old, Becker became the youngest-ever winner of a Grand Slam singles title – a record he would hold until Michael Chang (b. 22 February 1972) won the French Open on 11 June 1989 at the age of 17 years 109 days.

Becker won his first 14 games as a singles player at Wimbledon when he led Willenborg 6-0, 6-0, 2-0 in the third set. “The weirdest thing is that it felt very normal,” he recalled in the book Boris Becker’s Wimbledon (2015). “I felt totally at ease. I was seeing the ball like a pumpkin; I couldn’t miss a thing.”

By comparison, Jennifer Capriati (USA, b. 29 March 1976) was 14 years 89 days old when she defeated Helen Kelesi 6-3, 6-1 in a first-round match at Wimbledon on 26 June 1990, making her the youngest tennis player to win a match in the main singles draw at Wimbledon overall. Capriati was two days younger than Kathy Rinaldi (USA, b. 24 March 1967), who won her first-round match 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 against Sue Rollinson at Wimbledon on 23 June 1981 at the age of 14 years 91 days. Cori “Coco” Gauff (USA, b. 13 March 2004) – the youngest player to reach the main draw at Wimbledon through qualifying – was 15 years 110 days old when she defeated five-time champion Venus Williams in Round 1 of the 2019 Wimbledon Championships on 1 July 2019.