Posted on 06/24/2010 10:44:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
WIMBLEDON, England -- When John Isner finally won the longest match in tennis history, he collapsed on the Wimbledon grass and then summoned one last burst of energy, springing to his feet to applaud along with the crowd.
The American hit a backhand winner to win the last of the match's 980 points, and he took the fifth set Thursday against Nicolas Mahut, 70-68.
The first-round match took 11 hours, 5 minutes over three days, lasting so long it was suspended because of darkness -- two nights in a row. Play resumed Thursday at 59-all and continued for more than an hour before Isner won 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68.
The American finished with 112 aces, and Mahut had 103, with both totals eclipsing the previous high of 78. There were only three service breaks in the match, the last coming on the final point.
With Mahut serving at 68-69, Isner hit a forehand winner for the first break-point chance of the day. Then he cracked the backhand winner for the victory -- only the third service break of the match, and the only one in the fifth set, which lasted 8 hours, 11 minutes.
The finish attracted an overflow crowd on cozy Court 18. Absent was Queen Elizabeth II, who had already departed the All England Club following her first visit to Wimbledon since 1977. She watched Briton Andy Murray win his match on Centre Court.
Isner won a match that was by far the longest in the sport's history in terms of games or time. The previous longest match took 6 hours, 33 minutes at the 2004 French Open.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
A bad week for the frogs.
Seventy - sixty-eight in the fifth set. Gawd what a match. I walked out on this one yesterday when it was 33-32......
This was terrific. I hope Wimbledon doesn’t wimp out and eliminate the unlimited length fifth set because of it.
One less thing to worry about. Thats a good thing.
70-68. That’s more points than has been scored in all of World Cup Soccer 2010...
I’m not a tennis fan, but as a sports fan I have to acknowledge that this should be remembered as one of the most remarkable sports stories of the decade. For a match to go on that long — to the point that it had to be postponed TWICE due to darkness — was unbelievable.
Wow. I didn’t see it. I must assume they were both good servers but poor returners?
Or were they returning well, with a fair number of 30-30/deuce games, but in the end those games went to the server?
That was the tie breaker.
Some official said after the match was over that from now on they would have tiebreaks. I forget the exact wording.
Wimbleton, is that where they smash that softball with really wide baseball bats, that have mitts on them? Kind of a gay sport, when a home run gives the other guy points.
I didn’t see the match and only had access to periodic updates at work, but from what I could see it seemed like the players both ran out of gas yesterday and got to the point where they could barely even summon the energy to move very far to return the other guy’s serve. This was why there were so few opportunities for service breaks all through the day yesterday.
Not a tennis fan, but the stamina of two people maintaining a tie over that many hours/days is remarkable.
I agree on both counts.
I agree on both counts.
Pity. They should check their ratings and reconsider.
It came on over here after the US-Algeria match and was already in the fifth set at 26-25. There weren’t a lot of ground strokes going on: big booming serves followed by an approach to the net and the put-away volley. At first I couldn’t figure out why the fifth set score showed that way: had they switched to a total point count for the fifth set? No - IT WAS THE GAME SCORE!!!!!
The best of 14, sets that is!
Any reports on how many attendees were treated for neck strains?
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