Neverending: The Longest Tennis Match

Join us on Daily Sports History as we delve into the epic 2010 Wimbledon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, the longest tennis match in history. Relive the record-breaking 11-hour, 5-minute battle that spanned three days, the incredible endurance displayed by both players, and the lasting impact of this unforgettable showdown on the world of tennis.


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Speaker 1: On June twenty fourth, twenty ten, in the Wimbledon's first round,

American John Isner took on Frenchman Nicholas Maou and little

did they know they would end up playing the longest

tennis match in Wimbledon's history. Behind these tennis athletes and

what happened in this crazy matchup today on Daily Sports History.

Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide

to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day.

And today's trivic question is what was the longest women's

singles match of all time? Now, to start out, let's

jump into both of these tennis players and see how

they got to this point. Now. John Eisner born in Greensboro,

North Carolina, and started playing tennis at the age of

nine and takes long before he got real into the

game and started taking it seriously at the age of eleven,

and he led his high school team to the state

championship in two thousand and one, and this led him

to continue tennis in college, playing for being recruited by

the Georgia Bulldogs, where he had a college career record

of one hundred and forty three wins and twenty eight

losses in singles and one hundred and forty wins in

twenty seven losses in doubles, and was regularly ranked as

the top tennis player across the country in the NC

DOUBLEA and he actually won the two thousand and five

NCUBLEA doubles title with his partner Antonio Rouiz Rosees. And

in two thousand and seven he won the team event

versus Illinois and made it to the singles finals, where

he lost in three sets, ending his college career be Shore.

The same year, he would turn pro and would quickly

climb up the ranks and he would be the twenty

third ranked player in the world heading into Wimbledon in

twenty ten, where he would face off against Frichman Nicholas

mount And Nicholas was born in Ingers, France, and he

started training in tennis at the age of five and

joined a tennis club in Paris at the age of eleven,

playing in juniors around the world, including the Covenant Orange Bowl,

which was one of the major tournaments for junior tennis

in nineteen ninety nine, and played in the Wimbledon Boys

Singles in two thousand, turning pro that same year and

in two thousand and three he actually broke broke into

the top one hundred for the first time, and he

also competed in doubles and won his first doubles title

at the Open Day Mozelle tournament. And in two thousand

and five he actually broke into the top twenty five

in doubles as well, and by twenty ten he had

over fifty career singles victories and was flirting with being

in the top one hundred and the top one fifty.

Entering into the Wimbledon twenty ten tournament, he was actually

a qualifier, which meant he participated in qualifying tournaments to

get his spot into Wimbledon and was ranked one hundred

and forty eight. And in that first round we saw

John Eisner, the favorite, go up against Nicholas Maout and

it all started at six thirteen pm on Tuesday June

twenty second, twenty ten, on Court eighteen at Wimbledon. So

up until twenty ten, the longest men single match was

at the two thousand and four French Open. It was

a first round match where Fabryce beat a nude in

six hours and thirty three minutes and lasted two days.

And since twenty and ten, there have been two other

matches that have lasted over six hours, and they were

both at the Davis Cup in twenty and thirteen in

twenty fifteen, but still we're nowhere close to what happened

at Wimbledon in twenty ten. And just for reference, the

longest women's match was at the nineteen eighty four Central

Fidelity Bank Invitational, where American Vicki Nelson beat fellow American

Gene in the first round, with the match that totaled

six hours and thirty one minutes, which is impressive because

the women's game also only plays the best of three sets,

where the men play best of five, so John and

Nicos And at this time, the Wimbledon only had lights

on their center court and this was Court eighteen, one

of their preliminary courts, and they usually only use the

center court for the finals in the semi finals, and

the match started on the second day of the thirteen

day Wimbledon tournament. And every Grand and Wimbledon is one

of the Grand Slams in tennis. Each Grand Slam has

played best of five sets, and to win a set,

you need to either be the first to get to

win six games or win by two and a game

consists of basically four points. Love is zero, fifteen, fifteen

is one, thirty is two, forty is three, and game

is four. So once you get to four, you went out.

And you often hear them call like thirty love or

thirty fifteen, and that's their point system for tennis and

have you also have to win by two for these games,

and you often hear if they're tied at if they're

tied at forty, they call deuces, which means they're tied.

And after twenty ten they change the rules where before

you play the tie breakers through every set, but after

this long tournament, this long game, they changed the rules

to make it that now they only do it in

the fifth set. So the game started without incident, but

many worried as the late start happened, which is common

sometimes in these tournaments because tennis is not a timed game,

so you're matched up after someone else playing on the court,

so you have to wait for them to finish. And

John Eisner, the favorite, took the first the first set

six to four, but n Nico took the second set

six to three, and the third set is win. They

really started to show the challenges as Nico won seven

to six, but they had to go into sixteen tiebreakers

to get for Nico to finally get that win, and

then Eisner took the four set, which they also had

to go to ten tiebreakers. So already in the first

four sets, it was a long time. It was almost

three hours into the game, which three hours is about

as long as a normal tennis match last, so they're

going a little bit slower than normal. And at this

point it's nine oh seven and there's no lights and

daylight is fading, so that they say they're going to

suspend play and start the fifth set the following day

at two o five pm. And this is where things

get interesting. They ended in the fifth set and they

went to the tiebreaker. So these tiebreakers in tennis is

very it's different than a normal set. Serves are alternated.

Instead of one person serving that entire game, and so

the first person serves one, the next person serves the

next one, and then you do every two. Then you

do every two as one person serves two times, the

next person serves the other two, and you go back

and forth, back and forth until someone gets to seven

and wins by two and or wins by two, so

you can win by you can win seven to five

or any variation, or in any number lower than five,

or you just keep going back and forth until someone

wins by two. And then Ernico and John ended in

a tie and they went to the tiebreaker, and this

is where things went a little crazy, as no player

was winning consecutive sets. It just went back and forth,

back and forth. No one could get those two wins.

John failed to convert four match points on this day,

being up ten to nine, failed to get the match point,

being up thirty three to thirty two also failed, and

being up fifty nine to fifty eight he also failed.

And by this point they had already shattered the previous

record for the longest game ever played. And Nico also

had two match points as well during this time and

failed as well. And when the tiebreaker was tied fifty

to fifty, the match was suspended due to darkness and

would be played on a third day. Now fifty to

fifty that is a lot. Each of those points is

a game they played. They played for almost seven hours

this day, and when they finally spended it, both John

and Nico were devastated. They just wanted this to end.

They didn't want to continue to go more and more,

and the challenge was neither of them could sleep. They

were antsy, they were excited, it's wimbled it. It's one

of the biggest tournaments, but they just couldn't sleep. Neither

of them slept more than three hours that night because

the game wasn't over. This is the first round of

the tournament, and coming in the next day, each were

kind of pretending that the other one had slept and

were trying to be impressive where they could see each

other warming up, acting like they were ready to go,

but the truth was both of them were dead, tired, dead,

exhausted and just wanted this to be over. And so

on June twenty fourth, twenty ten, on court eighteen, still

they continued their match, and they went all the way

to being tied sixty eight to sixty eight when Nico

went up thirty love, but iSER came back and won

four straight points to win the game, giving him a

sixty nine to sixty eight lead in the tiebreaker, and

it was Nico's turn to serve and it was fifteen

fifteen and hit where he dove for a drop shot

and fell into the ground exhausted and he said later

that he probably would have made that shot and tore

the point if he had any energy left to chase

after the shot. That's why he dove after it and

they ended up tied back at thirty thirty when Eisner

passed hit a shot cross court with his forehand just

inside the line that Nico just could not reach and

getting him the lead to thirty. And this was the

fifth match point and the first one on the third

day of this match, and fourteenth overall breakpoint for the match,

and Eisner converted a down the line backhand shot that

made it right past Nico, and after over an hour

and seven minutes on this third day of this match,

John Eisner had finally beat Nico my tiebreaker set that

went seventy to sixty eight. The entire match lasted three days,

a total playing time of eleven hours and five minutes,

which was a world record, beating the previous time by

over four and a half hours. Funny enough, the scoreboard

was struggling to keep up with this as it had

never gone this high before, and it set forty seven

to forty seven from the second day all the way

until they got it fixed for the third day. But

after the game, the two players embraced in a quick

hug and handshake that the two that John and Nico

regret to this day that they didn't do more, but

they were both exhausted and just kind of happy that

it ended. Nico was happy to be a part of

such an memorable time at Wimbledon even though he lost,

and John was happy to move on to the next round.

But sadly, probably due to exhaustion, John lost his next

round the next day and the match only lasted seventy

four minutes. It was the shortest match at Wimbledon that year. Now,

both John and Nico were doubles for this tournament as well,

and both their games were delayed due to their singles matches.

But Eisner had to withdraw due to blisters on his toe,

and Nico lost his doubles match as well in four sets.

And interestingly enough, they would meet two more times in

the two thousand and eleven season, once at the twenty

eleven Hopman Cup in Perth and again at Wimbledon one

year later, and everyone wanted to see this great matchup

again and John Eisner won in three sets. I think

the match only lasted two hours and three minutes, and

John finally retired in twenty twenty three, with sixteen career

titles and his best finish at a Grand Slam getting

to the semifinals in Wimbledon in two thousand and eight,

and his highest ranking was eighth in the world in

twenty eighteen and was able to accumulate over twenty two

million dollars during his career, and Nico is currently still playing.

He won a total of four career titles and was

ranked as high as thirty seventh in twenty fourteen, and

his best finish at a Grand Slam was being in

the fourth round at Wimbledon in twenty sixteen. He's had

a much better career as a doubles player than in

his singles career, has won every single Grand Slam in

doubles and won two French Opens, and as a career

earnings over twelve million dollars. Though these two tennis players

are not household names, many of us have never heard

of them until this moment in twenty ten, but it

was a great moment where everyone was drawn to the

first round of Wimbledon, which no one usually remembers. Then

they also have put a plaque on core eighteen, commemorating

the moment in the longevity of this great moment in

tennis history. And I want to thank you for listening

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and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. And

did you get today's trivia question? What was the longest

women's singles match of all time? The longest women's match

was at the nineteen eighty four Central Fidelity Bank Invitational,

where American Vicki Nelson beat fellow American Jeen Hepner in

the first round.