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savfan104What the hell.
This is the most hilarious Wimbledon match either. I present to you - the story of Nicolas Mahut.
He's down to being ranked in the 150s, after a career-high in the 30s a few years back. He's playing in the qualifying rounds at Wimbledon.
He wins an easy match in the first round. In the second round, he loses the first set 4-6 before coming back to win the second set 6-3 and the third set 24-22. (For those not in the know, a set is played to 6 games, but you have to win by two. In most cases, if it gets to 6-6, you play a tiebreak. In the deciding set at Wimbledon, however, no tiebreak is played, hence scores like 24-22.)
Final round of qualifying. He loses the first TWO sets, but since the last round of qualies is best-of-5, he comes back and wins the next three - final score 6-7(8-10 in the tibreak) 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-4.
First round of the main draw, Tuesday. He starts playing John Isner. After 2 hours and 54 minutes, they've played four sets - they're tied at 2 sets apiece, 4-6 6-3 7-6 6-7. Match postponed until the next day due to darkness.
Fine, it's a delay - they'll play one set on Wednesday and be done with it, right?
Wrong. They start playing the second match on court 18 on Wednesday. Seven hours and 6 minutes later, the match is postponed again, due to darkness, at a score still dead even at 59-59 in the fifth set.
Both Isner and Mahut have now broken the previous record for number of aces in a match by 20% or so. (Currently at 95 aces for Mahut, 98 for Isner.) The fifth set alone is longer than any match previously on record, both by time and number of games. (Not to mention that the whole match, at 10 hours, is far beyond anything previously seen.)
The scoreboards stopped working because they didn't go that high. The online Wimbledon scoreboard wrapped around at 50-50, the one on the court just died at something like 47-47. The commentators have long run out of anything new to say.
I'm half hoping that the match will be over quickly tomorrow - that one or both of them will be unable to recover from the day's play and will lose two quick games. On the other hand, it would be hilarious if they both took the nights rest to get back into their serving rhythm - who knows how much longer they could go? 100-100?
Some quotes about it:
"It's unfortunate these guys are going to be a little bit tired tomorrow and the next day… and the next week… and the next month..."
"I hope somehow, someday, this is going to end. "
Twitter tells me that "Mahut-Isner" anagrams to "Humans tire" (I guess by contrast with Mahut and Isner, who don't.)
To summarize - the one time Wimbledon doesn't get any rain to screw up their schedule, they get a 59-59 (to finish) all-day set. WTF.
Post-script - the match ended with a final score of 70-68 in the fifth, with both players surpassing the 100 ace mark. The next day, John Isner had to play his 2nd-round match, and of course lost - in just barely over an hour, the shortest match of the tournament, having hit 0 aces. Not unexpected.
This is the most hilarious Wimbledon match either. I present to you - the story of Nicolas Mahut.
He's down to being ranked in the 150s, after a career-high in the 30s a few years back. He's playing in the qualifying rounds at Wimbledon.
He wins an easy match in the first round. In the second round, he loses the first set 4-6 before coming back to win the second set 6-3 and the third set 24-22. (For those not in the know, a set is played to 6 games, but you have to win by two. In most cases, if it gets to 6-6, you play a tiebreak. In the deciding set at Wimbledon, however, no tiebreak is played, hence scores like 24-22.)
Final round of qualifying. He loses the first TWO sets, but since the last round of qualies is best-of-5, he comes back and wins the next three - final score 6-7(8-10 in the tibreak) 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-4.
First round of the main draw, Tuesday. He starts playing John Isner. After 2 hours and 54 minutes, they've played four sets - they're tied at 2 sets apiece, 4-6 6-3 7-6 6-7. Match postponed until the next day due to darkness.
Fine, it's a delay - they'll play one set on Wednesday and be done with it, right?
Wrong. They start playing the second match on court 18 on Wednesday. Seven hours and 6 minutes later, the match is postponed again, due to darkness, at a score still dead even at 59-59 in the fifth set.
Both Isner and Mahut have now broken the previous record for number of aces in a match by 20% or so. (Currently at 95 aces for Mahut, 98 for Isner.) The fifth set alone is longer than any match previously on record, both by time and number of games. (Not to mention that the whole match, at 10 hours, is far beyond anything previously seen.)
The scoreboards stopped working because they didn't go that high. The online Wimbledon scoreboard wrapped around at 50-50, the one on the court just died at something like 47-47. The commentators have long run out of anything new to say.
I'm half hoping that the match will be over quickly tomorrow - that one or both of them will be unable to recover from the day's play and will lose two quick games. On the other hand, it would be hilarious if they both took the nights rest to get back into their serving rhythm - who knows how much longer they could go? 100-100?
Some quotes about it:
"It's unfortunate these guys are going to be a little bit tired tomorrow and the next day… and the next week… and the next month..."
"I hope somehow, someday, this is going to end. "
Twitter tells me that "Mahut-Isner" anagrams to "Humans tire" (I guess by contrast with Mahut and Isner, who don't.)
To summarize - the one time Wimbledon doesn't get any rain to screw up their schedule, they get a 59-59 (to finish) all-day set. WTF.
Post-script - the match ended with a final score of 70-68 in the fifth, with both players surpassing the 100 ace mark. The next day, John Isner had to play his 2nd-round match, and of course lost - in just barely over an hour, the shortest match of the tournament, having hit 0 aces. Not unexpected.
