Longest tennis match in history isn't finished yet

[jtbell]

A first-round match at Wimbledon has gone to 59-59 in the fifth set. They started playing yesterday, got suspended because of darkness, resumed today and got suspended because of darkness again. They've been at it for ten hours so far!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/tennis/06/23/isner.mahut.ap/index.html

 

[Evo]

Good lord.

 

[f95toli]

And it was warm and quite humid today (I live close to Wimbledon). I was out running for about 40 min earlier this evening (while they were still playing) and that was more than enough. 10 hours is just insane

 

[fluidistic]

They should have continued with light bulbs... Too bad they can rest for so long. It wouldn't have lasted so long if they had played continuously.

 

[Office_Shredder]

Were you watching? By the end, whenever someone was getting close to being broken (which wasn't often, something like 6 break points the whole day) the server would just dig up a solid 120 mph serve (which was faster than most at that point) and the other guy would be helpless. They needed to stop because nobody had the energy to break by the end

 

[turbo]

Were you watching? By the end, whenever someone was getting close to being broken (which wasn't often, something like 6 break points the whole day) the server would just dig up a solid 120 mph serve (which was faster than most at that point) and the other guy would be helpless. They needed to stop because nobody had the energy to break by the end

Yep! Brutal. When the server gains that much edge due to lack of reflex and response of the receiver, it can be tough. Lots of players can come up with an impressive serve when needed, but be unable to run cross-court, volley, etc in order to salvage a point.

 

[danago]

Thats amazing. I've watched plenty of tennis matches that went quite far into the fifth set, but somebody always falters before it gets too far into it. Unbelieveable how consistently these guys played.

 

[Borg]

Wow! I'm definitely curious to see when that ends.

 

[jtbell]

They're supposed to resume on Court 18 sometime after 15:30 local time, 10:30 AM in the eastern US. I don't have cable or satellite TV (only terrestrial broadcasts), but it looks like it will be streamed on espn3.com for people in the US.

 

[Borek]

Looks like they are both still going strong - 61:61.

Edit - 63:63.

 

[leroyjenkens]

This is almost as good as this one time me and two other people had a 3 way tie in rock paper scissors like 7 times in a row. What are the chances of that?

Well they weren't all 3 way ties, but one of us would choose rock, the other scissors and the other paper, so we had to redo it. That happened like 7 or 8 times in a row.

 

[Borek]

67:67

 

[Borek]

Isner 70:68

 

[lisab]

Isner 70:68

Ouch, it would hurt to lose a match after all that. Well I'm sure the winner hurts too.

 

[jtbell]

Here's the final scoreboard, with Isner and Mahut standing next to it.