In nearly 150 years of Wimbledon, certain finals have separated themselves from the rest — not just for the quality of tennis played, but for the drama, the historical context, the legacy they left behind.
The greatest Wimbledon finals have shifted the trajectory of careers, reshaped the sport’s collective memory, and produced the kind of sustained competitive intensity that defines an entire era of the game.
Here is a guide to the greatest Wimbledon finals ever played, ranked by a combination of athletic excellence, dramatic stakes, and lasting historical significance.
2008: Rafael Nadal vs. Roger Federer — The Greatest Match Ever Played
Final score:Nadal d. Federer 6–4, 6–4, 6–7(5), 6–7(8), 9–7
Duration: 4 hours, 48 minutes
The 2008 Wimbledon men’s singles final is, by widespread consensus among players, journalists, and analysts, the greatest tennis match ever played. Twelve months after Federer had beaten Nadal in the 2007 final, and four weeks after Nadal had defeated Federer at Roland Garros for the third consecutive year, the two greatest players of their generation met in a final that produced four hours and 48 minutes of tennis at a level neither has matched since.
Nadal won the first two sets 6–4, 6–4. Federer fought back through two tiebreaks — saving two championship points in the fourth-set tiebreak at 5–2 down on Nadal’s serve — to level the match.
The fifth set began under gathering rain clouds, was interrupted by darkness, and ended at 9:16 pm with Nadal converting his fourth match point on a backhand pass that ended Federer’s 65-match grass-court winning streak.
The numbers tell part of the story: Federer hit 89 winners and lost. Nadal saved 12 of 13 break points. The fourth-set tiebreak alone is regarded as one of the greatest passages of play in tennis history. But the match’s significance ran deeper than its scoreline.
It was Nadal’s first Wimbledon title — completing the Channel Slam (winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same calendar year), a feat previously accomplished in the Open Era only by Rod Laver and Björn Borg. Forty-three days later, Nadal would overtake Federer at the top of the ATP rankings, ending Federer’s record 237 consecutive weeks at world number one.
John McEnroe, watching from the commentary booth, said simply: “This is the greatest match I’ve ever seen.”
1980: Björn Borg vs. John McEnroe — The Classic
Final score: Borg d. McEnroe 1–6, 7–5, 6–3, 6–7(16), 8–6
Duration: 3 hours, 53 minutes
Before the 2008 final, the 1980 men’s singles final was, for nearly three decades, regarded as the greatest tennis match ever played. The matchup itself was the dramatic foundation: Borg, the Swedish ice-cool baseliner pursuing a record fifth consecutive Wimbledon title, against McEnroe, the volatile 21-year-old New Yorker booed onto Centre Court after his combustible semi-final against Jimmy Connors.
The match’s centrepiece is the fourth-set tiebreak — widely considered the greatest tiebreak ever played. With Borg twice serving for the championship in the fourth set, McEnroe forced the tiebreak and then survived 22 minutes of relentless tennis, saving seven championship points before winning the tiebreak 18–16.
In the deciding fifth set, with the match level at one set all in the broader narrative, Borg held his nerve. He won the final set 8–6, lost just two points on his seven service games in the set, and dropped to his knees in his traditional victory pose — winning a fifth consecutive Wimbledon title that would not be equalled in the Open Era for 27 years.
The match endures not just for its quality but for its symbolism. Borg would lose to McEnroe in the 1981 final and retire from competitive tennis at the age of 26 the following year.
The 1980 final was the apex of his career, the moment when the Borg-McEnroe rivalry — perhaps the most compelling in tennis history before Federer-Nadal — produced its definitive expression. The fourth-set tiebreak remains one of the most replayed passages of play in the sport’s history.
2019: Novak Djokovic vs. Roger Federer — The War of 13–12
Final score: Djokovic d. Federer 7–6(5), 1–6, 7–6(4), 4–6, 13–12(3)
Duration: 4 hours, 57 minutes
The 2019 final is the longest singles final in Wimbledon history and, by the time it concluded, the first to be decided by a final-set tiebreak under the new rule introduced that year. It was also the last Grand Slam final of Roger Federer’s career.
Federer led the deciding set and served for the championship at 8–7, 40–15. Two championship points on his own serve. He missed a forehand on the first. Djokovic produced a brilliant forehand return-of-serve winner on the second. The game eventually went to deuce, then to Djokovic.
From 8–8 the match continued for another four games until the new tiebreak rule took effect at 12–12. Djokovic, the world number one, won the tiebreak 7–3 to claim his fifth Wimbledon title.
The match’s drama was sharpened by Federer’s age and the long-running narrative of his late-career rivalry with Djokovic. At 37, Federer was widely understood to have a finite number of remaining Grand Slam opportunities. He would never reach another major final.
The 2019 final was the first Wimbledon singles match decided by a tiebreak, the catalyst for further conversations about Grand Slam final-set rules, and a reminder of one of the most enduring lessons of high-level tennis: that holding serve at the most consequential moments of a match requires something different from holding serve at any other point in it. Djokovic, who held his nerve on Federer’s two championship points, became the first man since Bob Falkenburg in 1948 to win Wimbledon after being championship point down.
2005: Venus Williams vs. Lindsay Davenport — The Greatest Women’s Final
Final score: V. Williams d. Davenport 4–6, 7–6(4), 9–7
Duration: 2 hours, 45 minutes
The 2005 Wimbledon women’s singles final is widely regarded as the greatest women’s final in the tournament’s history, and at two hours and 45 minutes it remains the longest. Davenport, the world number one who had not won a Grand Slam since 2000, faced Venus Williams, ranked 16th in the world following an injury-disrupted period and seeded just 14th.
Davenport took the first set 6–4 and was serving for the championship at 5–4 in the second when Williams produced one of the great late-set rescues in Wimbledon history, breaking back and winning the tiebreak 7–4.
In the third set, Davenport led 4–2, was broken back, and at 5–4 had championship point on Williams’s serve when Williams hit a backhand down-the-line winner to save it. At 7–all in the deciding set, Williams broke Davenport’s serve and held to win the title.
It was Williams’s third Wimbledon title and her first Grand Slam in nearly four years. She was the lowest-ranked Wimbledon women’s champion in Open Era history and the first woman in the Open Era to win the title after being championship point down.
The day before the final, Williams had met with Wimbledon officials urging the All England Club to adopt equal prize money. Two years later, in 2007, equal prize money arrived — and Williams won the title again.
2001: Goran Ivanišević vs. Pat Rafter — The People’s Final
Final score: Ivanišević d. Rafter 6–3, 3–6, 6–3, 2–6, 9–7
Duration: 3 hours, 4 minutes
The 2001 final is the most emotionally resonant of Wimbledon’s modern finals. Ivanišević, the big-serving Croatian who had lost three previous Wimbledon finals (1992, 1994, 1998), entered the tournament as a wild card ranked 125th in the world — a player whose shoulder injury had effectively ended his elite career. He won seven matches at SW19 to reach the final, where he met Pat Rafter, the popular Australian and two-time US Open champion.
The match was played on the third Monday of the tournament — “People’s Monday” — after rain had pushed the men’s semi-finals to the second Saturday and the final back by a day.
With Centre Court tickets unsold and made available on the day to ordinary fans, the atmosphere was unlike any other Wimbledon final in modern history: a working-day audience, populated heavily by Croatian and Australian flags, generating noise more commonly associated with a football stadium than the All England Club.
Ivanišević won 9–7 in the fifth on his fourth championship point, falling to his knees in tears. He remains the only wild card to win a Grand Slam in the Open Era and the lowest-ranked male player ever to win Wimbledon. His title is one of the most universally celebrated in the tournament’s history — a story so improbable that no plausible script could have produced it.
1985: Boris Becker vs. Kevin Curren — The Birth of an Era
Final score: Becker d. Curren 6–3, 6–7(4), 7–6(3), 6–4
Duration: 3 hours, 18 minutes
The 1985 Wimbledon final was not the greatest in technical terms, but it was one of the most consequential. Boris Becker, the 17-year-old West German ranked 20th in the world and unseeded (Wimbledon only seeded the top 16 at the time), defeated South African-born American Kevin Curren in four sets to become the youngest men’s singles champion in Wimbledon history, the first unseeded champion, and the first German.
Becker was 17 years and 227 days old when he won — a record that has not been broken in the 40 years since. His youth, his power-serving style, and his diving, full-court game made him an immediate global star.
The Wimbledon final began a 17-year career that would produce three Wimbledon titles, six Grand Slam championships overall, and the transformation of German tennis culture.
The 1985 final earns its place on this list less for the match itself than for what it produced. Becker’s victory marked the arrival of a player who, alongside Stefan Edberg, John McEnroe, and Pete Sampras, would define the serve-and-volley era of Wimbledon men’s tennis through the late 1980s and 1990s.
1978: Martina Navratilova vs. Chris Evert — The Beginning of a Dynasty
Final score: Navratilova d. Evert 2–6, 6–4, 7–5
Duration: Approximately 2 hours
The 1978 Wimbledon women’s final was the first major title of Martina Navratilova’s career and the start of the most dominant Wimbledon run in the tournament’s history.
Navratilova, 21 years old and still developing into the serve-and-volley player she would soon become, defeated Chris Evert — the world number one and defending champion — in three sets to claim her first Grand Slam.
Evert won the first set 6–2 and led 4–2 in the second. Navratilova fought back to win the second 6–4 and edged the third 7–5, completing one of the early classic Williams-Evert rivalries’ defining matches.
The win launched Navratilova’s career as a Grand Slam champion. Over the next 12 years, she would win Wimbledon eight more times, including six consecutive titles from 1982 to 1987 — a record no man or woman has matched in the Open Era.
The 1978 final earns its place on this list for what it began. Every Navratilova-Evert Wimbledon match after this one was contested between the world’s top two players, and Navratilova would win all five Wimbledon finals they would eventually contest. The dynasty that defined women’s tennis in the 1980s started with this match.
Other Notable Wimbledon Finals
A handful of other finals deserve mention for their place in the tournament’s competitive history.
1999, Pete Sampras vs. Andre Agassi: Sampras’s straight-sets defeat of Agassi in the 1999 final — 6–3, 6–4, 7–5 — is widely cited as one of the great displays of grass-court mastery in the Open Era. Sampras won 92 percent of his first-serve points.
2013, Andy Murray vs. Novak Djokovic: Murray’s straight-sets victory ended the 77-year wait for a British men’s champion. The match produced a final game of extraordinary tension, with Murray saving three break points before converting his fourth championship point.
1990, Martina Navratilova vs. Zina Garrison: Navratilova’s ninth and final Wimbledon title — a 6–4, 6–1 victory that set the women’s singles record that has stood for 35 years.
2022, Novak Djokovic vs. Nick Kyrgios: Djokovic’s four-set victory secured his seventh Wimbledon title, equaling Pete Sampras and moving him one behind Federer on the all-time list.
The Bottom Line
The greatest Wimbledon finals are not simply the matches with the highest quality of tennis. They are the matches in which excellence, drama, and historical significance combined to produce performances that have become permanent fixtures in the sport’s collective memory.
The 2008 Federer-Nadal final is the consensus pinnacle. The 1980 Borg-McEnroe match held that position before it. The 2019 Djokovic-Federer war of 13–12 brought the format that defined Wimbledon for over a century to a new and unfamiliar conclusion.
Every era of Wimbledon has produced a final that defines it — and the finals collected here are the matches against which all future Wimbledon Centre Court competition will continue to be measured.
