The Reason For The Longest Tennis Match In History – Isner vs. Mahut
John Isner won the longest match in tennis history at Wimbledon yesterday when he beat Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68.
John Isner, Nicolas Mahut and the unreal score - Photo by GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images
The match was full of records but one key question remains: why did this tennis “anomaly” happen?
John Isner said in his interview that he doesn’t know really why. He thought that both players served really well and that perhaps it was meant to happen.
Nicolas Mahut also said that he didn’t know why the match lasted so long.
I personally think that the main “culprit” for this result is John Isner. There are two elements of his game that forced the match into such a marathon.
His serve is in my opinion one of the top 3 serves on ATP. (The other two being Karlovic and Roddick)
But his movement is very poor on grass.
John Isner is a big guy at 6 foot 9 (206 cm) and if he wants to move that big body even moderately well, he NEEDS good ground support (traction) from which he can push into every direction.
But grass doesn’t allow that. As soon as you push from the ground too roughly, you slip. So it’s really tough for John to change direction or start running quickly.
His best surface for movement is definitely the hard court where can get a good grip with his shoes.
So once John returned the ball, he was immediately in defense and couldn’t get out of it. His returns are also not the best and he was really struggling to play from the baseline in majority of points.
All credit to Mahut for top notch serving too – but it was really Isner’s inability to play well on the return combined with his unbreakable serve that kept the score going until 70.
Your thoughts on the match and why you think it lasted so long are of course very welcome as always!
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June 27th, 2010 at 10:27 am
I tend to agree that Isner’s return of serve was a factor in that 5th set going on forever.
If you’ve ever played on grass then you know that lost of serves stay really low through the bounce, and at 6’9′, that’s rough on a player like Isner.
I’ve got more thoughts on John’s return of serve over at my blog, specifically at this comment to one of my recent posts:
http://webtennis.com/2010/06/24/and-we-have-a-tie/comment-page-1/#comment-2029
Brent
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June 27th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Thanks for stopping by, Brent!
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June 30th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
I think both players return of serve was the factor. Isner’s serve definitely deteriorated towards the end of the match and he flat out wasn’t moving. If Mahut had a better return of serve, he should have been able to string together a few good points. You just had two guys with no defense to back up their offense really, can’t say it was just one of them.
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July 6th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Pro’s are not getting any smaller.
How about raising the net one or two inches?
– although, I thoroughly enjoyed that historic match.
Worst return of serve match in history? or Best serving match in history?
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July 6th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Interesting analysis Thomaz. I have not hear anyone mention it but possibly a bigger anomoly than the 70-68 score was the amount of total points differential in Mahuts favor. Typically other than winning the last point the number stat to determine a winner is total points and mahut was in double figures more total points than Isner.
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July 6th, 2010 at 11:46 am
I think the combination of fatigue and trying to hold serve and preserving the energy to hold the serve again created a loop.
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July 7th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I think both players going into Wimbledon, after seeing the draw, realized they could not win Wimbledon and, therefore, prior to their match they agreed to set several records by majoring on playing offense and minoring on playing defense. Unfortunately, for Mahut, Isner pulled a fast one and got the last laugh by taking the final shot with a pass down the line and winning the match.
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July 7th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
How much tennis was actually played in that 5th set? I’m betting there wasn’t very much. As I see it, about 88% of the 7 hours during that 5th set was spent between points…
I’m not saying there wasn’t a huge physical factor to that match, and specifically the 5th set, but to me the most incredible factor was the mental part of that match.
I did an interview with Joel Drucker today asking him about the difference between what the pros go through between points and what we go through.
Joel had a very interesting observation. Here’s where you can hear that interview – http://wp.me/pUxIL-mk .
Brent
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July 8th, 2010 at 11:27 am
I have to go along with Tomaz.
John and Nicholas were suddenly part of a cycle: John keeps serving like a giant and wins. Nicholas has trouble returning these bombs and looses. Then Nicholas serves with consistency and takes advantage of John’s poor displacement on the grass and equalises the score. And the cycle repeats.
They are both condamned to play and play and play, untill one falls apart.
It must have been devastating for Nicholas to realise that he playd 8 extra hours to end up like this.
Only on grass, could a situation like that occur. Not forgetting that at Wimbledon, they stop playing when darkness arrives.
JL
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July 12th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
The whole event was surreal. I had much work to do, but I couldn’t drag myself away from the TV. In addition to the remarkable physical accomplishment of both players was the amazing mental toughness.
Can you imagine the stress and pressure on Mahut’s serve with the number of consecutive times he had service games that he had to defend because he was down a game? Unbelievable! I was thrilled to be able to witness it with my 18 year old son.
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