There’s Also An Epic Wimbledon Match Happening

If U.S.A.-Algeria wasn’t enough excitement for you (and if not…really?)…how’s the longest match in tennis history sound? Because it’s happening right now, between American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut. It’s currently tied the fifth set – 42-42.

UPDATE 5: Match suspended for darkness. Probably the only fitting way for this to end. How were these guys still standing upright? Back tomorrow with even more.

UPDATE 4: 59-59. Mahut just fought off match point because, hey, what’s this match gonna do, end?

UPDATE 3: 56-56. This is a parallel universe. We have all been transported to another realm entirely, in which Isner and Mahut were replaced by two tennis-playing automatons who will never, ever yield. This match is not of our earth.

UPDATE 2: 52-52. This match will never end. It will go, and go, and continue on…and then it will keep going. I’m a shell of a person right now and all I’m doing is checking updates online. These guys have been PLAYING the whole time? that doesn’t even compute.

UPDATE: 46-all. Just looking at the score – and giving even one passing thought to the level of exhaustion involved in playing a match this long – is draining the life out of me. I can see what Xan Brooks is talking about. This is absolutely surreal.

You read that right: 42-42. The marathon match actually started last night but was suspended after four (already long) sets due to darkness. However, Mahut and Isner have now played more than the equivalent of a full five-set match today. Needless to say, whoever wins this will be awfully tired for his next match.

The over-seven (UPDATE: eight)-hour-old contest is driving Xan Brooks of UK paper The Guardian to the brink of a mental breakdown. Brooks is currently keeping a hilarious Wimbledon live blog that is now, as much as anything, a chronicle of his sheer disbelief that this match is still going. Some highlights:

False dawns and shimmering mirages out on the jungle Congo of Court 18. For a moment there, I thought Isner was cracking. The man can barely move his feet any more and Mahut still has some bounce, lashing a backhand return for a clean winner.

But what John Isner still has is his serve. It is a brutal serve, heavy and reliable. He totters to the baseline, fires some aces and goes ahead 32-31, leaving Mahut to serve to stay in the match for what I am reliably informed is the 2,362nd time. This he duly does and so we go merrily on through the jungle.

[...]

The score stands at 34-34. In order to stay upright and keep their strength, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut have now started eating members of the audience. They trudge back to the baseline, gnawing on thigh-bones and sucking intestines. They have decided that they will stay on Court 18 until every spectator is eaten. Only then, they say, will they consider ending their contest.

[...]

Over on Centre, third seed Novak Djokovic has bagged the first set (again on a tie-break) from Taylor Dent. All of these four players are alive. Their blood runs warm and their eyes are bright. They have nothing – nothing! – in common with the two shuffling, shambling ruins that are currently hitting aces and eating spectators in an ongoing horror show on Court 18. Latest update from the abattoir: 35 games each.

[...]

The scoreboard is barely visible through the grass and weeds and trails of Spanish moss. It shows that John Isner and Nicolas Mahut are locked at 37 games each in the final set.

I’m wondering if maybe an angel will come and set them free. Is this too much to ask? Just one slender angel, with white wings and a wise smile, to tell them that’s it’s all right, they have suffered enough and that they are now being recalled. The angel could hug them and kiss their brows and invite them to lay their rackets gently on the grass. And then they could all ascend to heaven together.

If nothing else, this match has given us the gift of Xan Brooks’ wit.

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