Being that I’m very excited that this is Wimbledon week (ok, 2nd week), I thought it would be fun to go back and revisit what is considered one of the greatest moments in tennis ever,…ever: The 1980 Wimbledon Men’s Singles final between John McEnroe and Björn Borg. In my book there might’ve been a few more but for today at least, this one is it and it is historical.
Picture a young upstart 21 year-old John McEnroe who is playing for the first time in the finals of Wimbledon against four-time Wimbledon champion Borg,who was playing his fifth consecutive final.
The only other person that can lay claim to five consecutive wins here is Roger Federer and is currently under consideration as the greatest player ever, or at least of this generation.
McEnroe took the first set 6-1 with Borg coming back and winning the next two at 7-5 and 6-3. In men’s singles at large tournaments, usually one wins the entire match when he has three sets. (In smaller tournaments, they only play best of three). At this point as they begin the fourth, the match is already over two hours old. It’s the set that made history forever.
For those that aren’t familiar with tennis, each set goes to the person who wins six games first. However if the score is close, the set is resolved in either of two ways:
1) The final score needs to be within two games, i.e. 7-5.
2) If the players reach 6-6, there will be a tie-break round where whoever gets 7 points first, wins. However this tie-break also needs to be within two points so no one will win the tie-break at 7-6. They will keep playing until someone wins a two-game lead.
The tie-break went 22 minutes and with lots of twists and turns to be resolved with McEnroe winning it 16-18, pushing them to a fourth set. However, it was not to end. Borg and McEnroe ended up in another tie break in the fifth set with that pushed to 31-
Take a look! I found it in three parts (Thanks to AwsiDooger):
Try catching this weekend’s finals! Every year NBC does Breakfast at Wimbledon starting at 9:00 am. The women’s singles final will be on Saturday and the men’s singles final will be on Sunday.
