Marija Cicak, 43, is all set to become the first female chair umpire for the Wimbledon men’s singles final in tournament history. The 43-year-old from Croatia will officiate the final match between Novak Djokovic and Matteo Berrettini at the All England Club.

Cicak’s announcement was made on Saturday. She is a gold badge chair umpire and a member of the WTA Elite Team since 2012.

She was the chair umpire for the 2014 Wimbledon women’s final and also the umpire for the women’s double final three years later.

She has also officiated the women’s singles gold medal match at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Before this, she officiated at the 2014 Wimbledon women’s final between Petra Kvitova and Eugenie Bouchard.

The Zagreb native has worked at 15 successive Wimbledon. She also worked at the Olympics in Athens, London, and Rio in 2016 where she umpired the women’s singles final.

Before becoming a familiar umpire face, Cicak was an athelete herself and had taken up tennis as a player at an early age.

“I was probably just born for sports, I guess. Whatever was there, it was just like, ‘Let’s go, let’s do this, let’s try this, let’s try that,’” Cicak had told WTA in a 2020 interview.

“I went through karate, table tennis, handball, swimming… and that’s pretty much how I started playing tennis. I was six years old when my uncle suggested to my mom that I try it. I started first through those mini-classes that you take when you’re a kid, and then I was 12 when I started playing tournaments,” she had added.

According to WTA, Cicak earned her first officiating certification to work at national events at age 15.

“I was just working events on lines or in the chair, and would play low-level tournaments for myself, just for fun, and I really enjoyed it,” she had said.

By the end of the stint in the university, she earned her white badge at an ITF Level 2 school in Umag, Croatia. In 2002, she earned her bronze badge in Vienna, Austria.

She was promoted to a silver badge in 2007, and she gained event experience as a member of a joint officiating team between the ATP Tour, ITF and WTA beginning in 2009.

Following this, she got a gold badge at the end of the 2011 season and joined the WTA’s team of umpires full-time the next year.

In 2015, Eva Asderaki-Moore and she made history as they took charge of the women’s and men’s singles finals at the tournament for the first time.