Serbia’s Novak Djokovic battled past Switzerland’s Roger Federer in the longest Wimbledon final in history to match Bjorn Borg by winning his fifth title.
This is as Djokovic earned £2.35 million as the prize money at Wimbledon.
In one of the most dramatic matches the All England Club has ever witnessed, Djokovic defied a crowd screaming for his opponent by becoming the first player to win a singles match on a deciding tie-break.
Djokovic had saved two match points when Federer served for victory at 8-7 in the deciding set and went on to take it 7-6 (5) 1-6 7-6 (4) 4-6 13-12 (3) after four hours and 57 minutes.
Federer had hoped to follow up his emotional semi-final victory over Rafael Nadal by completing the double over his other great rival for the first time at a grand slam and fought back well having twice been a set down but this will be one of his most painful losses.
Djokovic has now Novak Djokovic battled past Roger Federer in the longest Wimbledon final in history to match Bjorn Borg won four out of the last five major tournaments, taking his overall tally to 16 and making Federer’s record of 20 seem ever more within reach.
The historical importance was a key theme of this final, with 37-year-old Federer staring at perhaps his last chance to put further distance between himself and his younger rivals.
Nadal is only two adrift and showing no sign of letting his iron grip on the French Open slip, while Djokovic has been open about the fact he is playing for history.
That perhaps played a part in this strange match, which rarely hit the heights in terms of sustained quality yet had enough plot twists for a feature-length thriller, even before its extraordinary deciding set.
Meanwhile, this year’s prize money at Wimbledon has increased for an eighth year in a row with the overall pot standing at £38 million.
The men’s and women’s singles winners earn the biggest slice of that pot with £2.35 million each.
Novak Djokovic defended his men’s title in the final after beating Roger Federer.
Serena Williams was beaten Simona Halep in the women’s final on Saturday.
First-round losers picked up £45,000, an increase of £6,000 on last year’s figure.
Wimbledon’s total prize money for 2019 surpasses the 62.5 million Australian dollars (£34.84 million) at this year’s opening Grand Slam in Melbourne but is still lower than the $53 million (£42.4 million) prize pool at last year’s US Open.
The French Open recently announced an eight per cent increase in prize money for next month’s event, taking it to €42.6 million.
Wimbledon 2019 prize money breakdown
Winner: £2.35 million
Runner-up: £1.175 million
Semi-finalists: £588,000
Quarter-finalists: £294,000
Fourth round: £176,000
Third round: £111,000
Second round: £72,000
First round: £45,000
(The Telegragh)
