World’s longest professional tennis match – Wimbledon 2010

The 2010 Wimbledon marathon finally ended when John Isner hit a backhand that flew past an exhausted Nicolas Mahut, ending the 11-hour, 5-minute match in the American’s favor at — deep breath — 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (9-7), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68.  The epic clash between Isner and Mahut was just a first round match! We now have the world’s longest official tennis match. This occured over a three day period of 22–24 June 2010. The fifth set was the longest set in history as determined by both duration and number of games (8 hours 11 minutes, 138 games); the set itself would have broken the duration (previous record: 6 hours 33 minutes)[4] and number of games (previous record: 112 games (singles), 122 games (doubles))[4] records of whole matches.

Other records they broke -

• Most games in match ever: 183 games over three days
• Most games in a single day: The first 118 games of the fifth set of Mahut-Isner match, played on 23 June 2010
• Longest play in a single day: The first 118 games of the fifth set of the 2010 Mahut-Isner match were played on its second day—23 June and lasted 7 hours and 6 minutes.
• Mens – Longest singles match by time played and number of games: In 2010, John Isner took 183 games to defeat Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(7), 7-6(3), 70-68 in 11 hours and 5 minutes of play time in the first round.

John Isner Nicolas Mahut pose after the longest tennis match - Wimbledon 2010

No matter what John Isner and Nicolas Mahut accomplish moving forward, no matter tournaments won, wives married, divorced, or lives saved, they will be remembered

John Isner defeats Andy Roddick…major upset at the US Open 2009

What an insane match.  This helped show that American still has some great tennis talent and can gring out an enexpected historical matchup between these 2 Americans that can serve easily over 125 mpy consistently.  You see John Isner defeated Andy Roddick, 7-6, 6-3, 3-6, 5-7, 7-6. So far, It’s the biggest upset so far in the men’s draw with the #5 mens seed now out.  Isner beat Roddick at his own game, tallying 38 aces and winning two tiebreaks to advance, marking the farthest he has ever lasted in a Grand Slam.

“This is hands down the biggest win of my career,” Isner said after the match. “The hair was kinda standing up on the back of my neck at some points. But I never panicked. I knew I had a shot.”

Indeed.

Here’s the final tiebraker in the 5th set of this insane match.

In the biggest match of Isner’s young career, the lanky 24-year-old didn’t shrink on the biggest of stages.

“We were waiting around in the locker room forever. But I actually kind of enjoyed that. I figured if I had a decently long match with Andy, it would kind of end at nighttime. I wanted that atmosphere,” said Isner.