The Woman Behind Wimbledon's Iconic Finger of Fate

An interview with the woman whose finger unwittingly created one of the most enduring images in modern Wimbledon history during the 2019 Djokovic-Federer final.

WIMBLEDON, England — During my brief time back at home between France and England this year, I started thinking about what stories I most wanted to write here on Bounces during my 10th trip to cover Wimbledon.

So much of Wimbledon history already feels so well-worn, told and retold and retold over decades; what mysteries might still remain about the mythos of this place?

And then, I thought of her.

She was only on screen during the 2019 Wimbledon men’s singles final for 3.16 seconds, but I had seen her face—and her finger—countless times since then. From one pivotally-timed crowd shot, she had gained tennis internet eternality.

This random woman in the Centre Court crowd—gleefully holding up one finger to show that Roger Federer needed just “one more” point to defeat Novak Djokovic and win his ninth Wimbledon title and 21st major title overall—had become the lasting, indelible image of the twist ending of the golden generation known as the Big 3.

The moment gained immortality because, as you likely know, that “one more” point didn’t ever come for Federer: Djokovic stormed back from two match points down to not only win that year’s Wimbledon, but to overtake Federer (and Nadal) in the all-time major count, ultimately becoming the nearly-undisputed greatest men’s tennis player of all time.

At the press conference following his 2025 Wimbledon quarterfinal win on Wednesday evening, Djokovic grinned when I showed a printed screenshot of the woman to him and asked him if he recognized her.

“Of course, of course,” he said, smiling. “Seen it many times.”

Djokovic doing an imitation of the famous finger.

I wanted to learn the story of the woman behind the finger that had birthed a thousand tennis memes, who had been seen so much but never heard.

And after some pretty high-grade internet sleuthing—if I do say so myself—I found her.

This is her story.

Meet Melanie

Melanie, unsurprisingly, first asked how I had found her. But once I explained my intentions why I was interested in her story, she agreed to do a phone interview, eager to share more about her long journey with tennis and Wimbledon in particular. (I’m not using her surname to protect her privacy because she’s not meaningfully a public figure.)