American John Isner has defeated Frenchman Nicolas Mahut after playing the longest tennis match ever. It started Tuesday, continued for seven hours Wednesday and mercifully concluded today after a total of 11 match hours. The final set took longer than the longest match in tennis history. Isner and Mahut play 138 games in the final set before Isner finally broke serve and got the needed two game cushion.
Check out the final scoreline:
4-6, 6-3, 7-6(7), 6-7(3), 70-68
Each player had well over one hundred aces, both of them shattering the previous record. Each had 80 or so in the final set. 80 aces each in the final set!
I don't watch much tennis these days, but this got me to tune in, even as it competed with World Cup games. I was madly flipping back and forth between two Cup games and the match.
Such a marathon would've never happened in the old days of tennis. The racket technology and the power of the modern player's serve make something like this possible. For 135-plus games in that final set, no one could break serve.
Honestly, I hope we never see anything like it again, but it was er, a curiosity. Hats off to both players. They added a few nevers to Churchill's "never, never, never, never give up."
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