One point from losing everything is tennis’s most honest location, and the short list of players who stood there and still won the trophy is the sport’s most exclusive club. Carlos Alcaraz holds the modern record, three championship points saved in last year’s French Open final against Jannik Sinner, and the club’s older members include the two most famous points of this century, saved by Novak Djokovic on Roger Federer’s own serve at Wimbledon 2019.
The subject is suddenly current twice over: Karolína Muchová just saved a match point to reach Saturday’s Wimbledon final (only two women have ever saved one en route to winning this title), and Sinner, the man who held those three championship points in Paris and lost, plays Sunday’s final.
The chart below is the full registry: every great escape on the road to a major title, the players who held championship point and watched it vanish, and why these points are so rare. Take a look, then we’ll break it all down.
Tennis History
Championship points saved: tennis’s greatest escapes
3
saved by Alcaraz: the record
2019
the most famous two points ever
2
women to save MP & win Wimbledon
SAT
Muchová can make it three
The great escapes: match points saved on the road to a major title
| Escape |
Saved |
The story |
| Alcaraz d. Sinner — 2025 French Open FINAL |
3 |
Down two sets and 0-40 on his own serve in the fourth: three championship points erased, then a 10-point-tiebreak win in the longest Roland-Garros final ever — the modern record escape |
| Djokovic d. Federer — 2019 Wimbledon FINAL |
2 |
8-7, 40-15, Federer serving for a 21st slam on Centre Court: return winner, netted forehand, and history pivoted — Djokovic won 13-12 in the fifth |
| Gaudio d. Coria — 2004 French Open FINAL |
2 |
Lost the first set 6-0, faced two championship points in the fifth vs. his cramping countryman — the unlikeliest slam champion of the era |
| V. Williams d. Davenport — 2005 Wimbledon FINAL |
1 |
Saved it at 4-5 in the third, won 9-7: the longest women’s Wimbledon final ever played, and the club’s founding modern member |
| S. Williams — 2009 Wimbledon (semifinal) |
1 |
Saved match point vs. Dementieva in an 8-6 third-set semifinal, then beat Venus for the title — the 2nd woman to save MP and win Wimbledon |
| Alcaraz — 2022 US Open (quarterfinal) |
1 |
Saved MP vs. Sinner at 2:50 a.m. in a 5h15m epic, won the title & became No. 1 — the rivalry’s first great escape (they’ve traded them since) |
| Djokovic — 2011 US Open (semifinal) |
2 |
Two match points on Federer’s serve, erased with THE return — the crosscourt forehand blur — then the title. The blueprint for 2019 |
| Muchová — 2023 French Open (semifinal) |
1 |
Saved MP vs. world No. 1 Sabalenka and won 7-5 in the third — the run ended in the final, but the escape announced her |
| Krejčíková — 2021 French Open (semifinal) |
1 |
Saved MP vs. Sakkari, won 9-7 in the third, then the title two days later |
| Kuerten — 2001 French Open (round of 16) |
1 |
Saved MP vs. qualifier Michael Russell, won the title, and drew the famous heart in the clay he then lay down in |
| Sampras — 1996 US Open (quarterfinal) |
1 |
The “vomit match” vs. Corretja: sick on court in the 5th-set tiebreak, saved MP, won it 9-7 — and the championship four days later |
| Muchová — 2026 Wimbledon (semifinal) |
1 |
Saved MP vs. Gauff in a 12-10 deciding tiebreak two days ago — a title Saturday makes her the 3rd woman ever to save MP and win Wimbledon |
The registry covers the marquee escapes of the Open Era on the road to (or in) major finals — capitalized FINAL rows mark championship points saved in the title match itself, the rarest event in the sport: it has happened in a slam final only a handful of times in half a century.
The other side: championship points held… and lost
| Jannik Sinner — 3 (RG 2025 final) |
The most ever squandered in a slam final — and he responded by winning Wimbledon a month later. He plays another final Sunday |
| Roger Federer — 2 (W 2019 final) |
Both on his OWN serve, at 39 minutes to a 21st slam; he called it the loss that stung most |
| Guillermo Coria — 2 (RG 2004 final) |
Cramping, sobbing, two points from the title his career was built for; he never reached another slam final |
| Lindsay Davenport — 1 (W 2005 final) |
One point from a 4th slam; it proved her last major final |
| Coco Gauff — 1 (W 2026 semifinal) |
Her first career loss from match point up — a drop shot into the net, two days ago |
The asymmetry is brutal: the escape artists got trophies and legend; three of the five names on this side never got back to the same stage. Sinner is the exception — so far.
Why championship-point escapes are so rare
| The math |
Most championship points arrive on the leader’s serve, where top pros win 65-70% of points: the door is barely open |
| The psychology |
Serving FOR a title measurably tightens arms — the save-then-win pattern almost always runs through a leader who never recovers from the miss |
| The escape-artist trait |
The great saves are nearly all AGGRESSIVE plays — Djokovic’s return winner, Alcaraz’s forehands: heroes swing, they don’t hope |
| The vocabulary |
“Match point” = one point from any win; “championship point” = one point from the title — same rules, entirely different weight |
The tour-level record book has bigger single-match numbers (multi-MP escapes happen weekly at 250s) — but at the majors, with a trophy one point away, the list above is essentially complete for the modern era.
Match records via ATP/WTA and tournament archives. This registry updates whenever a new escape joins the list — the next candidates play at Wimbledon this weekend. Current as of July 10, 2026.
The Two Points That Rewrote the GOAT Debate
Every escape on the list changed a career; one changed the sport’s whole historical argument. Wimbledon 2019, fifth set, 8-7, Roger Federer serving at 40-15: two championship points for a 21st major, on his own serve, on his own lawn, at 37. Djokovic took the first with a crosscourt return winner and watched Federer push a forehand into the net on the second, then won the first 12-12 final-set tiebreak in Wimbledon history, and the ripples never stopped: Federer finished his career on 20 majors, Djokovic sailed past to 24, and the two points became the most replayed “what if” in modern sports. It wasn’t even Djokovic’s first Federer escape, he’d saved two match points on Federer’s serve in the 2011 US Open semifinal with the most audacious return ever struck at that score, and won that title too. The 2019 escape’s true heir arrived in Paris last year: Alcaraz, two sets down and 0-40 to Sinner in the French Open final, saving three championship points and winning a five-and-a-half-hour masterpiece that instantly entered the greatest-match conversation. The connective tissue of all three: the man saving didn’t defend, he attacked, swinging as if the scoreboard read love-all, which is the entire secret of the club.
The Redemption Economy, and This Weekend’s Live Entries
What makes the registry so magnetic is what happens after, on both sides. The escape artists tend to ascend: Gaudio’s 2004 French Open (two championship points down to a cramping, weeping Coria after losing the first set 6-0) remains the patron-saint story of unlikely champions; Kuerten followed his 2001 fourth-round escape by drawing a heart in the Roland-Garros clay and lying down inside it; Sampras turned the vomit-match save of 1996 into a championship inside a week. The holders tend to haunt: Coria never reached another slam final, Davenport never won another major after her 2005 Wimbledon championship point vanished, and Federer named 2019 the loss that hurt most. The great modern exception is playing this weekend: Sinner answered the three squandered championship points of Paris by winning Wimbledon a month later, and he defends that title Sunday, while Muchová, whose semifinal escape against Gauff two days ago (a match point saved in a 12-10 deciding tiebreak, Gauff’s first career loss from match point up) is the registry’s newest entry, plays Saturday for the ending that would make her only the third woman ever, after Venus in 2005 and Serena in 2009, to save a match point at Wimbledon and leave with the Dish. The list above has been waiting fifty years for weekends like this one.
Final Word
Championship points saved, the registry: Alcaraz’s record three against Sinner in the 2025 French Open final, Djokovic’s immortal two on Federer’s serve at Wimbledon 2019 (rehearsed in the 2011 US Open semifinal), Gaudio’s two against Coria in 2004, Venus’s one against Davenport in 2005, and the road-to-the-title escapes of Serena, Alcaraz at 2:50 a.m., Krejčíková, Kuerten’s heart in the clay, and Sampras mid-illness, opposite a held-and-lost ledger (Sinner 3, Federer 2, Coria 2, Davenport 1, Gauff 1) that mostly reads like a list of hauntings. Muchová can join the winners’ side Saturday; Sinner, the redemption exception, plays Sunday. The registry updates the moment either final produces a new entry.
This weekend’s stakes live in the Muchová-Nosková final preview and Sinner vs. Zverev: the head-to-head, and the broader canon is in the greatest sports comebacks of all time.
