Five Things To Know About The Wimbledon Men’s Final

After coming through their marathon semi-final encounters, Novak Djokovic will lock horns with Kevin Anderson. The winner will exit the tournament with £2.25 million in prize money as well as 2000 ranking points. Djokovic is bidding to win his biggest title since returning to the tour from a six-month absence due to a elbow injury. Meanwhile, Anderson is targeting the biggest title of his entire career.

Here are five things to know about the 2018 final.

1. The head-to-head

Should the Wimbledon final goes according to their head-to-head, Djokovic is destined to claim the title. They have clashed on six previous occasions with the Serbian winning the last five of them. At Wimbledon Djokovic has already defeated Anderson twice before. In 2011 he cruised to a 63, 64, 62 win. Then in 2015, which was the last time they met prior to today, he experienced some tough resistance before prevailing 67(6), 67(6), 61, 64, 75.

The only time Anderson defeated Djokovic was back in 2008 at the Miami Open. That was also the first time he had ever defeated a top 10 player in his career.

Head-to-head record

2. The overs 30s record

For the first time in Wimbledon history, the men’s final will be contested by two players over the age of 30. Djokovic’s age is 31 years 54 days and Anderson’s is 32 years 58 days. In grand slam tennis, this is only the eighth time this has happened in the Open Era (on the men’s tour).

Wimbledon finalists over the age of 30
Rod Laver – 1969 (champion)
Ken Rosewall – 1970 and 1974 (champion on both occasions)
Arthur Ashe – 1975 (champion)
Jimmy Connors – 1984 (runner-up)
Roger Federer – 2012 (champion), 2014-2015 (runner up twice) and 2017 (champion)
Novak Djokovic – 2018 (TBD)
Kevin Anderson – 2018 (TBD)

3. Djokovic is targeting lucky No.13

Should the Serbian prevail at The All England Club, he will move to fourth on the all-time list for most grand slam titles. Only Federer (20), Rafael Nadal (17) and Pete Sampras (14) have won more than him. So far, he has won 12 grand slam titles.

Djokovic has a 12-9 win-loss record when it comes to grand slam finals. This is his fifth Wimbledon final and the only player to have defeated him at this stage of the tournament was Andy Murray back in 2013.

He is one of only two men to have achieved 60 or more wins at all four grand slam tournaments. A win at Wimbledon would be his fifth grass-court title. The third highest among active players.

4. Anderson’s South African milestone

Anderson has already created tennis history for his home country. He is only the second South African player to reach multiple grand slam finals and the first in the Open Era. The only other player to do so was Eric Sturgess during the 1940s and 1950s. He is also the first South African Wimbledon finalist since 1921.

Should Anderson go on and defeat Djokovic, he would achieve a series of milestones. Including :-

• Becoming only the second South African grand slam champion in history. The first was Johan Kriek at the 1981 Australian Open.
• The first ever African man to win a Wimbledon title in the Open Era. The other other to triumph was Jaroslav Drobny, who represented Egypt, in 1954.
• He would also become the second-oldest first-time grand slam winner in history. The first was Andres Gimeno, who won the 1972 French Open at the age of 34 years 206 days.

5. The rankings

Due to a six-month injury lay-off during 2017, Djokovic dropped to as low as 22nd in the world earlier this year. The first time he has been outside of the top 20 since 2006. Nevertheless, his run at Wimbledon means he will rise to at least 11th in the world. Should he win the title, he would re-enter back into the top-10 at 10th for the first time since November.

Anderson will make his top-5 debut regardless of if he wins or loses in the final. He will be fifth as runner-up and fourth if he wins the title.

The men’s final will get underway on Sunday afternoon at 14:00 local time.