John Isner's visibility to the sports world at large shot up on June 23, when an otherwise insignificant match was being played on an outer court, away from the hubbub of the show courts. 7 hours later, he and Nicolas Mahut had gone into history, playing the longest match ever, and even then, it wasn't
Well, you have to realize that the Isner-Mahut match was something of a perfect storm. A big server facing a guy (Mahut) that couldn't see his serve, first or second. Isner was able to hold serve mostly because nearly every big serve wasn't coming back. That lead to many games with easy enough holds. Similarly,
The match continued much where it had left off. Isner, who said he was delirious when he came off the court, and wondered a day after why he wanted the match to end despite Mahut looking the fresher of the two, was back to serving well. His first few serves went awry, and it seemed,
It was surprising the players held up this well. Today's players have so much support with them, that they recover much better than they would have 30-40 years ago where a player might be lucky if they had a coach. Few would have any idea how to recover in such a situation. But today, both
The day began with many Americans looking somewhere besides the lawns of Wimbledon. Down in South Africa, the US team, in Group C, was fighting for its World Cup lives. The math worked liked this. If the US beat Algeria, then the US would be one of two teams into the main draw. However, as
It was five hours ago that I was reporting on the Roddick-Llodra match. At the time, the Isner-Mahut match was called due to darkness at 2 sets each. Most people felt the set would be over an hour later. Not. Even. Close. More than 6 hours later, with over 100 games played, a decision was
Early in the French Open, where daylight often lasts close to 10 PM, there was a significant controversy in the match between Gael Monfils and Fabio Fognini (that's Fognini in the photo). Originally, the referee had left it up to the players to play, and both seemed to agree. Then, Fognini's coach instructed him not
With all the rain that affected play on Wednesday and Thursday, matches were backlogged. Matches that were supposed to be played Thursday were pushed into today. In an effort to catch up, matches that were originally planned for today, i.e. 3rd round matches, were played today. All top 5 seeds play Friday which include Federer,
Perhaps the most peculiar match of Day 4 was the one between Gael Monfils and Fabio Fognini. That the match needed to go to an extra day to get finished was a "shame on Gael" situation. Gael Monfils was winning comfortably, up 2 sets to none. His athleticism should have been enough to win. Fognini
Most of the top pros like to spend the week before a Slam putting in last minute prep work. For example, Federer, Nadal, Murray, and Djokovic are not playing this week. However, there's almost always a tournament that is played the week before a Slam because some pros want match practice all the way up
