Jannik Sinner owns four Grand Slam titles, all won inside a two-year burst that made him world No. 1, the first Italian man ever to hold either distinction, and tomorrow he defends the most famous of them in a Wimbledon semifinal against the one opponent whose records dwarf everyone’s: Novak Djokovic, whom Sinner leads 6-5 … Read more
The run fits the career: two major titles (the 2023 US Open and 2025 French Open), double-digit tour titles including the WTA Finals, a former doubles No. 1 ranking, and a résumé that has been rewriting “youngest since” lists since she beat Venus Williams at this same tournament as a 15-year-old qualifier. The chart below … Read more
Novak Djokovic owns 24 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any man in tennis history, and as of this week, the number is under live threat of becoming 25. The 39-year-old just survived the longest quarterfinal ever played at Wimbledon (five hours, fifteen minutes) to reach a record 15th semifinal at the All England … Read more
For 147 years, from the first championship in 1877 through 2024, every “out” at Wimbledon was called by a human being in a Ralph Lauren uniform. In 2025, that ended: the All England Club switched to full electronic line calling, retiring around 300 line judges in one stroke, abolishing the player challenge system entirely, and … Read more
Tennis is the only major sport where the score goes 15, 30, 40, where zero is called “love,” where a tie at 40 is called “deuce,” and where nobody alive can tell you with certainty why. The scoring system is a 600-year-old inheritance from medieval France, so old that its original logic is genuinely lost, … Read more
Wimbledon employs a hawk. His name is Rufus, he’s a Harris’s hawk, he reports for work before dawn during the Championships, he carries his own security accreditation, and his job title, printed on the pass, is “Bird Scarer.” Every morning before the gates open, Rufus flies patrol over Centre Court and the grounds to convince … Read more
Wimbledon employs a hawk. His name is Rufus, he’s a Harris’s hawk, he reports for work before dawn during the Championships, he carries his own security accreditation, and his job title, printed on the pass, is “Bird Scarer.” Every morning before the gates open, Rufus flies patrol over Centre Court and the grounds to convince … Read more
The most Wimbledon singles titles ever won belongs, on the women’s side, to Martina Navratilova, whose nine championships include a run of six straight (1982-87) that remains the most sustained ownership of one major in the Open Era. The men’s record is Roger Federer’s eight, a summit that suddenly matters again this fortnight, because Novak … Read more
For 141 years, a Wimbledon match could theoretically last forever, and in 2010, one nearly did. Final sets at the Championships were played to a two-game advantage with no tiebreak of any kind, which is how John Isner and Nicolas Mahut produced the most famous scoreline in tennis: 70-68 in the fifth, eleven hours and … Read more
Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam still played on grass, and the reason is both simpler and stranger than most fans assume. Grass isn’t a quirky choice Wimbledon made; grass is what tennis is. The sport’s full, formal name is lawn tennis, it was invented on Victorian croquet lawns, and the All England Club that … Read more