Djokovic overtakes Federer with record 106th Wimbledon win to reach quarters

The 105-match tie that linked Novak Djokovic's name to Roger Federer's for more than a decade at the All England Club finally broke on Sunday afternoon, in the sort of workmanlike fashion that has always characterised the Serb's British summer. A 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(1), 6-7(5), 6-3 defeat of qualifier Roman Safiullin delivered victory No. 106 in men's singles at SW19 — a record by one, and one of the more low-key entries in a career thick with them. The 38-year-old will play a quarter-final later this week; the number is the headline.

That is the appropriate register, because Djokovic's Wimbledon ledger is now, in numerical terms at least, beyond reasonable dispute. The Federation's historians will record him as the most decorated match-winner the tournament has produced, and a victory or two further into the draw will only widen the gap. Whether the same ledger settles the more metaphysical question of tennis greatness — the one Federer and Rafael Nadal partisans have argued over for years — is another matter, and not one the record itself pretends to answer.

The record, in plain terms

The milestone is uncontested: 106 wins, one more than Federer, accumulated across two decades of summers. The supporting numbers around it are familiar to anyone who has watched the sport this century — Djokovic owns more Grand Slam titles than any man in the Open era (24, as of this fortnight) and more major finals appearances than either of his rivals. Sunday's feat is a Wimbledon-specific marker rather than a Slam-wide one, but it has the virtue of being measurable on a single scoreboard that has hosted the men's event continuously since 1884.

The manner of the win reinforced the point. Safiullin arrived in the fourth round as a qualifier ranked outside the top 100, the sort of opponent Djokovic at his peak used to dispose of inside three sets and an hour. This one took four sets, a tie-break in each direction, and just under three and a half hours — long enough to allow the Centre Court crowd its usual late-afternoon chorus of "No-le! No-le!," short enough to confirm that the leg and the back, after so many surgeries, still hold under five-set pressure. The seven-time champion did not need to be at his best; he merely needed to be present.

What the stat sheet does and does not settle

Federer completed his Wimbledon career at the 2021 Championships, having last played the tournament in 2019; his retirement froze his tally at 105. That he did not add to it in 2021 was a question of fitness, not appetite. The implicit argument from his supporters — that 105 is the number Federer chose to leave at rather than the number fate allowed him — is reasonable on its face. Sports statistics do not, however, function as opt-in tallies. Federer's total is the total; Djokovic has now passed it.

What the record does not capture, and what no single integer can, is the texture of the two careers in London. Federer's Wimbledon run was a study in compression — short, often brilliant, rarely extended past the middle Sunday. Djokovic's has been the opposite: five-set marathons against Nadal and Andy Murray, the 2019 final against Federer himself, an extraordinary final against Jannik Sinner in 2023, a run of upsets in 2024 that cost him the title to Carlos Alcaraz, and the serial grind of title defence that has worn the lawns at the All England Club into a familiar surface. The two men have, in a sense, played different tournaments. The ledger treats them as one and the same.

The remaining questions are more prosaic. Djokovic must now beat either Taylor Fritz or a Spanish clay-court specialist — the draw will resolve that in the next 48 hours — to set up a semi-final, and then presumably beat either Alcaraz or Sinner to set up a final. The body, at 38, is the variable the numbers cannot price. He has spoken in recent weeks about managing load across the calendar and hinted, without committing, that this could be his last Wimbledon. On the evidence of Sunday, the load is still within budget.

A familiar framing the record invites

Tennis coverage has spent two decades circling the GOAT question, and Sunday's result supplies the next round of it. The familiar apparatus is by now predictable: a Djokovic win advances the case for him; an Alcaraz or Sinner triumph tilts it back toward the question of whether the era has already moved on. What the discussion tends to underweight is the institutional reality that produced all three careers — the homogenisation of surfaces, the professionalisation of the off-court team, the depth of the tour that denies anyone a quiet week. The single-name debate persists because it is journalistically convenient. The deeper question, of how the modern game has spread elite-level performance across a wider pool of players, is more interesting and less talked about.

Stakes, and what the next week settles

The draw from here on is short and unforgiving. A quarter-final, a semi-final, a final: three matches to determine whether 2026 is added to a list that already runs to seven. Whether that happens, and against whom, will tell us more about the state of Djokovic's late career than any single statistical marker. The 106th win is the milestone. Whether it becomes a chapter or a footnote depends on what comes after.

Staff-writer note: this piece leans on the BBC and ESPN match reports for the score and the record claim; both wires agree on the four-set score and the 106 figure. The broader GOAT framing is the writer's, and reflects Monexus's preference for letting the numbers do the work over importing any single player's promotional language.