Until you get 2 people of similar ability, with equal fitness, will and temperament.
Not even that really. There have been hundreds of matches like that. These are people not machines. People usually make game ending mistakes long before this amount of time.
Which is what makes it all the more remarkable. These 2 guys were serving better after 9 hrs than most players can manage in a first set.
Almost… at Wimbledon if you have a ticket for the Show Courts (i.e. Centre Court or No 1 Court) you have a ground pass included. So you can wander around the outside courts if there’s a break between matches on the stadium courts.
If you have a ground pass you are only allowed to see the outside courts, although late in the day there is sometimes the chance to purchase Show Court tickets at a discount from people who have left for the day.
One thing I’ve not seen mentioned is the standard of sportsmanship displayed. The primadonnas on Centre Court will scream and howl, yet both Isner and Mahut have been utter gentlemen.
Is it over yet?
No.
Some great stats coming out of this; for example, in 2002 Serena Williams’ entire Wimbledon (which she won) was shorter than the final set of this match.
The game won’t re-start before 15:30.
That happens all the time, and they still don’t play a match that lasts this long. It’s uncommon for people of similar ability, fitness, will, and temperament to play a match half this long.
It’s almost as rare as rocking-horse shit, but on the off-chance it occurs it’s handy to have a shovel.
Isnar makes me smile actually; he waves his racket in the general direction of the ball and it’s 120mph every time, even if he’s almost comatose. I mean, he’s not even concentrating and it’s a 120.
I think it’s the differences between them that has made the match last so long. Isner has a killer serve which reaches speeds of 140 mph+ whilst Mahut strength lies in the rally.
Mahut got through the first round 3-6, 6-3, 24-22 which was pretty wild to start with!
This is a first round match. What you’re thinking of was a qualifying match. Mahut’s ranking isn’t very high, so he needed to win three matches last week just to get into the tournament. Two of his three matches were long ones.
63 all! FFS!
65 all. My god they must be so sore. Their arms are going to fall off.
They seem to have fixed the Slamtracker (and the on-court scoreboards) to cope with the number of games. (Before, there was a note on the online one saying “Please add 50 to game score in Mahut v Isner!”).
At this rate they will still run out of space when the score reaches 100-99.
68-69 for those who can’t get it at work.
Holy Moses! ! !
And it’s over. 70-68 to Isner.
Stick a fork in them - they’re done.
70-68 to Isner, after 11+ hours of playing. I can’t imagine what he’s going to feel like when he steps onto the court for his next match in a few days’ time.
I’m assuming they both got an incredible send off? I’ll have to watch the highlights tonigh.