. . . switch on to Wimbledon - history in the making.
54-54 in the final set, after over 9 1/2 hours of play.
Match still live.
I’m at work and a World Cup match is on. A guy could get killed.
I’ve been watching since it was 12 - 12
I’m losing the will to live, but somehow can’t turn off the tv…
It’s 58-58 in the 5th, after 9 hours 50 mins.
Have they taken a break for strawberries and cream yet?
So on the scoring is this where the first to 6 wins but you’ve got to win by two and neither can achieve that lead?
Nope, just plasters, painkillers and toilet breaks 
Play suspended, day 3 tomorrow :eek:
Usually at 6 all there would be a tie break but on the 5th set at Wimbledon there is no tie break so they play real games until one player gets 2 games ahead to win.
Can someone explain the significance of this to a non-tennis player?
I take it this is an extraordinarily long game?
I’ll move it to the Game Room and let someone there explain it.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
If you happen to be a chiropractor I would turn the TV off and go set up outside the courts, there are bound to be people with severe neck strain walking out, you could make a fortune!
Well, for a while, it was the longest match in Wimbledon history. Then it became the longest match in Grand Slam (major tennis tournament) history. Now it’s the longest match in tennis history. The previous record match lasted 6 hours, 31 minutes. This match has been going on for 9 hours and 58 minutes, and will resume tomorrow. The Wikipedia article (information may change rapidly as the event progresses) lists a number of records that have already been broken during the match.
A major professional tennis match, if it’s close and the players are about equal, might last two and a half or three hours. Four hours is a really long match. These guys have played against each other for 10 hours. They played 7 hours today, so the last set by itself is the longest professional tennis match ever. They both looked semi-comatose by the end today. That last set is so long that the Wimbledon scoreboard and the online scoreboard both failed. And they’re still not done.
See, this is one of the reasons I dislike tennis. While it is unlikely that a match will drag on for days, it is always theoretically possible. A match could last forever. And it could be the very match that you are sitting through right now. There’s just something appalling about that prospect that repels me.
Whereas with timed sports, there is some kind of definite conclusion in the not too distant future. It could be hours in the future, but at least you know that it’s definitely coming.
So maybe it isn’t such a bad thing that ‘soccer’ simply allows the draw rather than insisting on a winner 
Out of interest, when you buy a ticket for the tennis do you buy a ticket for a particular match or do you buy a ticket for a day or what? It must be annoying if you bought a ticket for yesterday and basically only got to see the middle of a match.
If I recall correctly you pretty much get to wander around at your leisure, though I assume there are certain restrictions.
And why would it be annoying? They got to see something they’ll be talking about for years.
An analogy might be something along the lines of a 50 inning baseball game, if that helps. Roughly twice as long as the previous record which itself was about twice as long as anything you’d expect to see.
One person has to beat the other instead of the game ending after a defined but essentially arbitrary amount of time. Why is that bad?
It’s not. And in any case it’s not an either-or proposition.
There are usually two options at a major tournament. Either you buy a pass to the main stadium, or the two or three main stadiums, in which case you get to watch a couple of matches featuring the most heralded players, or you buy a grounds pass and you can wander around to any court except the main ones, and see more matches. It’s early in the tournament, so match was being played on Court 18. You need a grounds pass to see a match there, and the court has about 800 seats. By the end of this one, thousands of people were crowding around. People who bought passes for Thursday’s matches will see the end of this one.
It almost doesn’t matter who wins this one- he’s surely toast in the next round. And the match started Tuesday anyway. Today people saw records get broken. They did want to see the end of the match but I doubt many of them are unsatisfied.
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It’s like baseball.
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This is why you don’t like it? This has never occured before in thousands of matches. It’s almost impossible.
And NFL football, and NBA basketball, and NHL hockey…