Since Wimbledon adopted its current format in 1922, has any man won the grass-court event without dropping a set? The quick answer is yes. But you might want to know who those players were.
As the 2025 edition of Wimbledon gets underway, let’s meet the men’s players who mowed through their competition on the grass courts at the All-England Club without losing a set. We’ve ranked the fantastic fivesome in order of how dominant they were during their unblemished fortnights.
Before we meet this quality quintet, an honorable mention to Jack Kramer and John McEnroe. Kramer won 77.8 percent of his games when he won the title in 1947 – the best percentage for any post-1922 champion. If he hadn’t lost a set in the semifinals, he’d be No. 1 on this list. McEnroe won 68.0 percent of his games when he won his third and final Wimbledon in 1984 – the best percentage of the Open era.
Who are the five men who won Wimbledon without losing a set?
All five of these champions won every set they played, so our primary ranking criterion is the percentage of total games won.
No. 5 – Roger Federer, 2017
Federer didn’t lose a set en route to his eighth and final Wimbledon title in 2017. He won “just” 62.8 percent of his games – the lowest among the five players who won Wimbledon without losing a set. (By comparison, Federer won 66.3 percent of his games when he won his fourth Wimbledon in 2006).
Federer won all five of his Wimbledon tiebreakers in 2017 to get through the fortnight without dropping a set.
No. 4 – Chuck McKinley, 1963
The “Who’s that?” entry on this list. McKinley may not be as well-known as, say, Rod Laver. However, McKinley accomplished something in 1963 that Laver was unable to do when he won Wimbledon en route to a calendar-year Grand Slam the year before: McKinley won his Wimbledon without losing a set. McKinley needed to win more than six games to win a set in six of his seven matches.
No. 3 – Bjorn Borg, 1976
The first of Borg’s five consecutive Wimbledon titles was his most dominant. Borg became the first men’s player in the Open era to win Wimbledon without dropping a set. He was pushed to a tiebreak set just once – against Roscoe Tanner in the semifinals – and won that tiebreak 7-1.
No. 2 – Tony Trabert, 1955
Trabert cruised to the Wimbledon title – the second of three majors he won in 1955 – without losing a set and winning 68.6 percent of his games. He gets bonus points because he proceeded to win the U.S. championship later in the year, also without losing a set. It’s still the only time a men’s player has won the Wimbledon and U.S. titles in the same year without losing a set.
No. 1 – Don Budge, 1938
Budge won 73.0 percent of his games to win Wimbledon in the year he completed the first calendar-year Grand Slam. That works out to an average match score of 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 for the entire tournament, the best percentage among the five men who won Wimbledon without losing a set. Budge capped his dominant run with a 6-1, 6-0, 6-3 demolition of No. 2 seed Bunny Austin in the final.