National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2010
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Jun 24, 2010 11:37:30 AM
The NCAA News
Former NCAA champion John Isner won a record-breaking match against France's Nicolas Mahut that began Tuesday. When play was suspended Wednesday, the first-round match was tied, 59-59, in the fifth set. Isner won, 70-68 Thursday afternoon after 11 hours and five minutes.
Play was called due to darkness twice. The match has set a bevy of records as of Wednesday evening:
- Longest match in terms of time. Isner-Mahut continued for 11 hours, five minutes; easily breaking the full-match record of 6:33, set at the 2004 French Open between Fabrice Santoro and Arnaud Clement)
- Longest match in terms of number of games. Isner and Mahut have played 182 games, 60 more than the 1973 Davis Cup doubles match that saw 122 games recorded
- Most aces in a match – Isner is at 98 as of Wednesday evening and Mahut at 95, 97 more than Ivo Karlovic and Radek Stepanek at the Davis Cup in 2009.
- Longest fifth set (The previous record was 21-19 between Andy Roddick and Younes El Aynaoui at the Australian Open)
"Nothing like this will ever happen again. Ever," Isner said in a television interview.
"When you come out and play a match like this, in an atmosphere like this, you don't feel tired out there, even though that's exactly what we are," he said after the match. "This crowd was fantastic."
Isner, who won the 2005 NCAA doubles title with partner Antonio Ruiz, was a student-athlete at Georgia. Read the Associated Press story about Isner's marathon match on Georgia's website.
Wimbledon does not use the fifth-set tiebreak rule. Isner and Mahut will play complete four-point games until someone wins by two games. To win a single game, a player must win by a margin of two points. Of the four major tennis tournaments, only the U.S. Open employs the tiebreaker.