Novak Djokovic defeats Roger Federer in the longest Wimbledon final: NPR

Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer on Sunday in the Wimbledon Men's Championship, defending his 2018 title, and broke records and tested new rules.

The match was the longest final in the history of Wimbledon in four hours and 57 minutes. Without a new rule that requires a tie break if both players score 12-12 in the final set, have gone even longer.

Djokovic won the first set, a bad sign for Federer, his opponent is 63-1 in major in the first set.

The two came and went, Djokovic taking the first set, Federer the second, Djokovic the third and Federer the fourth. After the fifth set 12-12, Djokovic took the unprecedented tie breaking 7-3.

The 32-year-old Serb won two consecutive titles in 2014 and 2015. He repeated the feat by defending his title in 2018 to win his fifth title at Wimbledon. Federer, his Swiss opponent, claims eight Wimbledon championship titles and would have been the oldest player to win a Grand Slam title if he had not been beaten.

Djokovic congratulated his opponent by stating, "I think if this final is not the most exciting, it's definitely one of the two or three best of my career facing one of the greatest players of all. the times, Roger, that I respect. "

Federer holds the record for most Wimbledon finals at 12.

"You take it on the chin, you keep going," Federer told the Telegraph. "You are trying to forget, to try to pull out the good things from this game, there are tons of them, and similar to 2008, I will come back and think," Well, it 's n'. is not so bad after all. "

Since his first win at Wimbledon against Rafael Nadal in 2011, Djokovic has established a signature tradition that involves eating grass from the field after every win. This year, he did not disappoint, squatting at gather a little grass in his mouth and smiling at the crowd while he savored his title.