Sunday’s Wimbledon final has a problem that’s also its plot: Jannik Sinner has beaten Alexander Zverev nine consecutive times. It’s the most lopsided head-to-head a No. 1 vs. No. 2 major final has ever carried, so lopsided that Zverev, asked after his semifinal which opponent he’d prefer, deadpanned: “I hope I can play a junior.” … Read more
Saturday’s Wimbledon women’s final is a first in the sport’s history: Karolína Muchová vs. Linda Nosková, the first all-Czech Grand Slam final ever played, and the first Wimbledon final between two players from the same nation since Venus and Serena in 2009. It guarantees a first-time major champion, extends Wimbledon’s streak of new champions to … Read more
Three World Cup finals have gone all the way to penalty kicks, and between them they contain the most famous miss in soccer history, the strangest ending any final has produced, and the greatest save sequence ever performed with a trophy on the line. With the 2026 final at MetLife nine days away, and the … Read more
Jannik Sinner beat Novak Djokovic 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in the 2026 Wimbledon semifinals on July 10, the latest and most emphatic chapter in the defining rivalry of tennis’s transition era: the 24-year-old defending champion dismantling the 39-year-old chasing a record 25th Grand Slam, while extending something almost no one in history has owned, a winning … Read more
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