Last weekend marked the culmination of a blistering two weeks of tennis at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London. And while it has been customary over the past 20 years to see a carousel of ladies walking away with the singles title, this is the first time in two decades that someone not named Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, or Andy Murray was crowned king in the men’s singles event.

Ladies first. Markéta Vondroušová from the Czech Republic became the first unseeded woman to win Wimbledon, after defeating Tunisian Ons Jabeur last Saturday, July 15. The casual tennis fan may find themselves checking Google to investigate who this lowest-ever ranked Wimbledon champion is, and how she emerged, but she has been turning tennis-heads since her teenage years. She is a former junior world number one, having won two major doubles titles and copped the 2017 Ladies Open Biel Bienne at age 17 in just her second career Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour singles event, helping her reach the top 100 of the WTA rankings before turning 18.

Markéta was also the runner-up at the 2019 French Open, at which she became the first teenage major finalist in nearly a decade. She has won a total of two singles titles out of six finals on the WTA Tour and a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. However, beside her number 42 world ranking, coming into the tournament two weeks ago, her 2-10 career record on grass made her the unlikeliest of champions, let alone in straight sets: 6-4, 6-4. But the 24-year-old, deceptively powerful lefty, took on all comers, beating four seeded players to become the second-lowest ranked player to reach the final since the WTA rankings were introduced, then stunned the sixth seed Jabeur (and the rest of the world) on Centre Court last weekend.

The defeat must have been devastating for Jabeur, playing (and losing) in her third major final in the past year, and she was the overwhelming favourite after having lost last year’s final to Elena Rybkina. But the 28-year-old veteran showed very little composure when it mattered most and was outdone by a combination of poise, patience, and power. And just like that, the unseeded proved to be unstoppable, and on the eve of her first wedding anniversary, Markéta nudged her way into the history books and out-hustled her competition to break into the top 10, which then led to Sunday, July 16 and four hours, 42 minutes of whatever one could ask for in the men’s final at Wimbledon.

There are tennis matches, there are instant classic tennis matches, then there is Novak Djokovic versus Carlos Alcaraz last weekend. Viewers experienced a generational battle — experience versus youth — in a gripping, five-act dramatisation played out before European royalty.

For the past two decades four men have laid claim to the grass courts at Wimbledon. Every men’s singles championship since 2003 have been won by either Federer (8), Djokovic(7), Murray (2), or Nadal (2), withDjokovic winning the last four instalments and the popular expectation was for him to tie Federer, and Bjorn Borg’s Open Era record of five straight Wimbledon trophies. But Alcaraz didn’t get the memo and denied Djokovic his eighth Wimbledon title after an epic and unforgettable five-setter.

With supremacy on the line, and with Felipe VI (King of Spain) in attendance, the 20-year-old Spaniard — the youngest-ever ranked number one at 19 years — came face to face with the last member of ‘the big three’, who is still capable of masterful tennis at 36-years-old, and the stage was set for a proverbial changing of the guard.

The Serbian, Djokovic, entered the final as the heavy favourite and Alcaraz found himself in a hole to start, losing the first set 1-6 and needing to dig deep, given that Djokovic had won his last eight Grand Slam finals after taking the opening set, with six of those eight victories coming in straight sets. In the second set, the combatants traded service games to force a tiebreaker as Djokovic, who already holds the record for the most Grand Slam tiebreaks won in a single year, looked to win his 16th major tournament tiebreak in a row. And it appeared he was set to get the job done by racing to a 3-0 lead, but Alcaraz battled back to 3-3 and Djokovic was assessed for a time violation before missing set point at 6-5, with Alcaraz drawing level again before winning the second set 7-6 (8-6).

Game 5 of the third set was a battle within the war, with Djokovic down 1-3 and serving to avoid a deeper deficit, the duo played a game lasting almost 27 minutes, only for the Serb to come out second-best, eventually losing the set 1-6 after being broken three times. For perspective, Djokovic had been broken three times in his previous six matches in the tournament combined. Now down, but certainly not out, the second seed displayed the powers of escape that have defined his illustrious career and levelled the match at two sets apiece after taking the fourth set 6-3.

In the fifth set, maybe due to his younger opponent’s speed and stamina, Djokovic appeared vulnerable and was broken on his second service game, following which he completely lost his head, smashing his racket and putting a dent in the net post as he received a warning on the way back to his bench. Alcaraz went on to triumph in the deciding set 6-4, gaining his second major title, following his triumph at last year’s US Open and retaining his world number one ranking.

His victory also ended Djokovic’s remarkable run of 45-straight wins on Centre Court — last losing to Andy Murray on July 7, 2013, in the final — and it took a player 16 years his junior, playing all out for the better part of five hours to break the run. The match represented the third-largest age gap between players in a Grand Slam men’s singles final in the Open Era and was quickly deemed “a spellbinding insta-classic” by Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated executive editor.

A standing ovation for Djokovic is well deserved, a generational athlete that was hardly phased through six rounds of Wimbledon but couldn’t orchestrate an “Escape from Alca[t]raz”. For “Carlito”, the third man to win Wimbledon before his 21st birthday, joining Boris Becker and Björn Borg, he already has two majors under his belt and only time will tell if he goes on to mirror the success of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic, but his victory signalled the dawn of a new day and the hope of a new generation.

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