Report by Paridhi Agarwal
The 2023 edition of the world’s oldest grand slam tennis tournament, Wimbledon got two fresh faces as champions this week. The women’s singles final was held on 15th July 2023 between Markéta Vondroušová, representing the Czech Republic, and Ons Jabeur, representing Tunisia. Markéta Vondroušová beat Ons Jabeur 6-4, 6-4, and won her first major singles title. She is the first unseeded player (a player who is not one of the best players in terms of rankings) in the history of the tournament to have won the title. She also won a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics previously. After this win, Markéta Vondroušová is ranked world no.10 in the rankings by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) while Ons Jabeur is ranked world no.6.
The men’s singles final was held on 16th July 2023. It was an exciting match between Carlos Alcaraz Garfia of Spain and 7-time Wimbledon champion, Novak Djokovic of Serbia. C. Alcaraz won his first Wimbledon title, breaking the 34-match winning streak of N. Djokovic. He beat Djokovic 1-6, 7-6, 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 in a 4 hours 42 minutes long match. Djokovic smashed his racket in frustration when he was beaten by Alcaraz and was awarded a penalty of $8000 for “racket abuse” (knowingly damaging the racket or other equipment or hitting the net or umpire’s chair)
After this win, Alcaraz is at the top of the rankings, having won two grand slam singles titles, one at the 2022 US Open and one at 2023 Wimbledon.
About Wimbledon 2023
The Wimbledon tournament of this year was held from 3rd July 2023 to 16th July 2023, and all the main matches were played on grass courts in the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon. The qualifying matches were played from 26th to 29th June 2023 at the Bank of England Sports Ground in Roehampton. This year’s tournament was the 136th edition overall, and 129th edition of the Ladies Singles Championship event. The champions won a prize money of £2,350,000 (₹21,57,81,700) this year. Wimbledon is the world’s oldest tennis tournament and is the only one played on grass courts. This year’s Wimbledon men’s final reached a peak viewership of 11.3 million on BBC one alone. The tournament was also shown live on various streaming platforms and TV channels.