A Tournament In One Match

For those who didn't hear, we just had the longest tennis match in history at Wimbledon. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut required a fifth set to decide their first round match, and fifth sets don't use the tie-breaker format to decide a winner (unlike the earlier sets in a best-of-5 match). In other words, once the fifth set reached 6-6, the players didn't transition to the single-point-per-serve tie-breaker format that's designed to decide the set more quickly than having to win by two games. Instead, they continued to play full games until one player achieved a two game advantage over the other player.

Incredibly, neither player could win two games in a row from that point on until the score got to 70-68! That's right: they'd played 45 games through the first 4 sets, and then combined for a mind-blowing 138 games in that final set! The match lasted 11 hours, spread out over 3 different days. Isner eventually prevailed, but the jury's out as to whether he'll have anything left for whoever he's matched up against in the second round. After all, he's played nearly an entire tournament's worth of games already!