The players returned on the following day and began their long vigil in the fifth set, relentlessly holding their serves before play had to be suspended again due to no natural light, stretching the match to an unprecedented third day.
It was such an unexpected occurrence that the electronic scoreboard stopped working at in the fifth set, as it had not been programmed to keep scores beyond that point. Isner and Mahut kept playing on June 24, serving over aces each and holding serve for an incredible consecutive games through the match. The American eventually prevailed, holding serve in the th game of the fifth set, and then broke Mahut in the th to prevail in the marathon match and progress to the second round.
The fifth set alone lasted eight hours and 11 minutes. John Isner bowed out in the second round to Dutchman Thiemo De Bakker in straight sets, clearly feeling the after-effects. Incidentally, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut met again in the first round of the Wimbledon, but this time the American won in straight sets. Oddly enough, the warm-up here was the first time they have faced each other across the net since last summer.
That may be the case, but as Isner thick-edged Mahut's opening serve into the stand behind him and that familiar flailing, triple-kneed, double-elbowed gait came flooding back like a buried recessive memory, it also seemed somehow inevitable that we should all be back here again.
It also seemed fitting that Isner-Mahut II should be staged on the brand-new Court Three, a self-contained mini-amphitheatre with the air of a bolt-on SW19 conservatory. After all, Isner-Mahut I was an essentially self-contained drama: likeably zany, an unchoreographed mini-marvel of the back courts whatever your tennis-tolerance, you cannot fail to be moved by but still essentially a freak match, an unrepeatable one-off.
The year since Isner-Mahut I has not been particularly kind to either man. Isner, seeded 24 then, is now ranked 47th in the world. No doubt both also still hold dear the dream of branding their names across the honours boards, but it seems increasingly likely that Isner-Mahut will continue to define them, a one-shot moment of enduring celebrity, like some eternally regurgitated Christmas number one. Perhaps it would be better simply to embrace it.
A friendship has flowered between the two men. Fellow Beeb commentator, and former British number one, Annabel Croft was on commentary on Centre Court on day one for a much quicker Venus Williams match.
They went out to Court 18, I went off to Centre, finished the venus match, which wasn't overly long and then I was released from the grounds, I went to do the school run, picked up one of my kids and then dropped her at gym club and went to do some shopping.
And every time I got in the car the match was still going. Then I came home, I got a glass of wine and I sat watching it until they stopped it because of bad light and I still couldn't believe I'd done a whole day like that and this match hadn't even finished. I felt so sorry for Ronald, he was so nice. There was a lot of banter. Even Greg, who had a big serve himself, was laughing about it. Its a first round loss. Isner bombed out a day later, thumped by Thiemo de Bakker, with the American a victim of his own first-round excesses, but the match against Mahut will never be forgotten.
The introduction of a fifth-set tie-break at by Wimbledon in means there is no prospect of another these days in SW Second time around, Isner needed just two hours and three minutes to record a straight-sets win. Your email address will not be published. Longest matches in Wimbledon history… 11hrs 5mins — J Isner d. The big serving of both players was cooking up never-before-seen numbers. Share this story. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Whatsapp Email.
0コメント