Cav's Place

This was simply amazing. For anyone who doesn’t already know, a historic match has just ended at Wimbledon. It started on Tuesday, was suspended as the evening fell, continued yesterday, was once again suspended as the evening fell, and finally finished today. John Isner defeated Nicolas Mahut 6-4 3-6 6-7 (7-9) 7-6 (7-3) 70-68, after a total of eleven hours and five minutes of play, spread over three days. The last set alone lasted for eight hours and eleven minutes.

To put things into perspective, let’s go through all the records that this match has smashed:
The longest duration for a match used to be six hours and 33 minutes. Now it’s eleven hours and five minutes. As I said, the last set of this match alone lasted for eight hours and eleven minutes. And keep in mind that this match took place on grass, which is the fastest surface, while the previous record was set on clay.
The highest number of games played in a match used to be 122. Now it’s 183, or exactly 50% more.
The most aces served by a player in a match used to be 78. Now it’s 112, served by John Isner. Nicolas Mahut closely follows him, as he served 103.
The most aces served in total in a match used to be 96. Now it’s 215.

This was a titanic struggle, with both players struggling to even stay on their feet by the time play was suspended yesterday. John Isner seemed to be more tired then and he also looked to be more tired when the match continued today. That tiredness was only getting worse and he didn’t seem to be able to do more than hold his serve, without putting up much of a fight when Mahut was serving, but apparently at some point he realized he had to give everything and push for the win, because otherwise Mahut was going to just wear him down until he’d be unable to move, and his push was enough to secure victory.
Still, you have to keep in mind that Mahut came from qualifying, so he played three more matches before this one. And two of them were really long as well. He won 6-3 6-0 in the first qualifying round, but then it was a staggering 3-6 6-3 24-22 in the second round and 6-7 (8-10) 6-3 3-6 6-4 6-4 in the final qualifying round, as the best of three sets rule is only used during the first two qualifying rounds.

Now let’s see if Isner will be able to play the next match, as he’s facing Thiemo De Bakker in the second round. Interestingly, Thiemo de Bakker also went through a very long first round match, winning 6-7 (4-7) 6-4 6-3 5-7 16-14 in four hours and six minutes, and is probably the first person in the history of tennis to start a match with a clear physical advantage over his opponent despite playing 30 games in the fifth set of his previous encounter.
But, whatever will happen, both Isner and Mahut are winners and they will be the ones everyone will remember after this tournament. At this point, who will win the final has become far less important than what happened in this one match, taking place on Court 18, in the first round.

Now it’s highly unlikely that these records will ever be matched, but I only hope that this match won’t make those in charge decide to remove even the theoretical chance of that happening, by making the final sets end in tie-breaks in all grand slam tournaments from now on. I mean, I keep hoping to see tie-breaks eliminated once again from the last set of US Open matches as well, not have the other three major tournaments go that same path! Because the chance of something like this happening is just what makes these tournaments so special…