Isner and Mahut Shatter Tennis World Records in Opening Round Match at Wimbledon
Over the course of three days, American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut absolutely decimated the mark for the longest tennis match in history with their opening round battle at this year’s Wimbledon Championships.
The match, which was longest both in time duration and number of games played, ran an incredible 11 hours and 5 minutes and finished with a final score of 6–4, 3–6, 6–7(7), 7–6(3), 70–68 in favour of Isner.
Isner and Mahut began playing at 6:18 PM British Summer Time on June 22 2010. After approximately three hours, play was suspended at 9:07 PM due to poor visibility and fading light. Play resumed the following day at 2:05 PM, and played suspended once again at 9:13 PM. The match broke the record for longest match ‘early’ in the fifth set at 5:45 PM. Play was once again started the following day at 3:40, and Isner finally won at 4:49 PM.
This lengthy struggle between the two players set several tennis records, and given this match’s unprecedented nature they could stand for a long time. Isner and Mahut nearly doubled the timeframe for the longest match; the playing time of 11 hours and 4 minutes eclipses the mark previously set at the 2004 French Open when Fabrice Santoro defeated Arnaud Clément in 6 hours and 33 minutes.
In fact, the fifth set played by Isner and Mahut was itself enough to go set the record for longest tennis match ever at 8 hours and 11 minutes. Additionally, the match trumped the records for most games played in a match for both modern and pre tie-break tennis. The largest modern mark was Andy Roddick’s 83 game victory over Younes El Aynaoui in the quarter-finals of the 2003 Australian Open. The pre tie-break mark was 112 games, also set in the first round if Wimbledon, when Pancho Gonzales defeated Charlie Pasarell in 1969. Isner and Mahut played a total of 183 games, with 138 in the fifth set alone.
Both players also surpassed the previous record for aces in a match, with Isner serving 112 aces and Mahut serving 102. The previous record was Ivo Karlović's 78 aces, served in 2009 during a Davis Cup match against Radek Štěpánek.
The match was so lengthy that even the electronics used at Wimbledon were not prepared for it. The IBM programmed scoreboard used court-side shorted out at 47-47 as it had only been programmed to go so far. The online official scoreboard at the official website also maxed out, but managed to survive until 50-50. At that point, the score was simply reset to 0-0 with a notice to add 50 to both scores.
Although both players were immediately recognized for their enduring achievement after the match with ceremonial gifts of a crystal bowl and champagne flutes by event organizers, but Isner was not given any leeway regarding further match play after his victory.
Just a single day after the monumental match, Isner faced off against top Dutch tennis player Thiemo de Bakker. While de Bakker had played a long previous match as well, he had finished on Tuesday and was relatively well rested. De Bakker dispatched Isner in just 74 minutes with a score of 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 and it was evident that Isner’s body was simply destroyed by the gruelling previous match. His serves were well below his usual 130 mph tally, and he did not have a single ace.
It seems unlikely that such a match can ever be played again. The circumstances which led to an eight hour fifth set are so unique and circular that the probability of two players falling into the ‘trap’ that Isner and Mahut fell into is unlikely. Mahut and Isner are both power servers, and after a certain length in game both were too weak and tired to fight back against strong service. Therefore, Isner would dominate each of his services, and Mahut would do likewise. It was impossible for either player to break service during that exhaustive period, and it proved hard do even the next day after some rest.
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