TennisVideo

Here’s How The Longest Tennis Match In Olympic History Ended

by Glenn Davis | 4:14 pm, July 31st, 2012

Second-round men’s singles tennis between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic probably wasn’t high on your list of must-wach Olympic events today. (It sure wasn’t on ours.) There was no reason for it to be. Yeah, Tsonga’s a good player – a personal favorite of mine, in fact – but this was no marquee matchup. There was no reason to expect anything special.

That, though, is the nice thing about the Olympics – you never know when the best moments will happen. And improbably, today Tsonga and Raonic produced what will likely be one of the enduring moments of the Games – a 6-3, 3-6, 25-23 marathon win for Tsonga that will, like so many of the greatest matches, almost certainly be better remembered for the display from both competitors than for who won it. Almost four hours. Three match points saved by Raonic. 48 games in the last set. If not for Isner and Mahut, that number would look absurd.

Still, though, despite the effort required of both players, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Tsonga did win, and he had to earn every bit of it – right through the last point. As with basically everything else in the match, it didn’t come easy. Here’s how it went:

Rarely has the trademark Tsonga celebration been more earned. Also earned, though: the jokes everyone started making about how long the match was once the third set started working its way into absurd territory (shades of Xan Brooks). Below, a few of our favorites.

Olympic Closing Ceremony will now include live cut-ins to Raonic/Tsonga match.

— james duthie (@tsnjamesduthie) July 31, 2012

Congratulations to the player who gets to face the winner of this Raonic/Tsonga match, since they have just been born.

— Down Goes Brown (@DownGoesBrown) July 31, 2012