There will be a female chair umpire for the Wimbledon men's singles final for the first time in the history of a tournament first played in 1877. Marija Cicak, a 43-year-old from Croatia, will officiate Sunday when Novak Djokovic faces Matteo Berrettini for the championship at the All England Club. The club announced Cicak's selection on Saturday, the AP reports. Cicak is a gold badge chair umpire and has been a member of the WTA Elite Team since 2012. She was the chair umpire for the 2014 Wimbledon women’s final and the women's doubles final three years later.
Cicak also officiated the women's singles gold medal match at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. She has worked at 15 consecutive Wimbledon tournaments. She was 15 years old when she first earned an officiating certification to work national events in Croatia, she told wtatour.com last year. The number of female umpires was increasing as she came up, Cicak said, and now there are mothers in the umpire's chair. She hopes there will be more soon. "These women, they're showing to the younger generation that this is possible as well," she said, "that you can have kids, you can have a family, and you can still travel and do this job."
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