The longest match in tennis history lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes, with players competing 3 days. Let’s look back at the showdown and look into other marathon matches.
2010 Wimbledon: John Isner Def. Nicholas Mahuto (11 hours and 5 minutes)
At Wimbledon in 2010, John Isner and Nicholas Mahut’s first round match lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes. The two fought in three days. Their match featured five sets, including five sets of 138 points. (Wimbledon didn’t use tiebreaks in the fifth set at the time.)
On the first day, the match had to be stopped at the end of the fourth set. On the second day, the scoreboard stopped working and was eventually programmed to go to 47-47 (but will be fixed by the third day). The match stopped on the second day as the sun set.
On the third day, Isner won the decisive final set, 70-68. There was a total of 980 points, including 711 points from the fifth set. The players were exhausted as they were four and a half hours longer than their longest match record. Isner’s 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68 victory allowed him to advance to face Thiemo de Bakker, but Isner would lose that match in just 74 minutes (the shortest male match in Wimbledon history at the time).
2018 Wimbledon: Kevin Anderson Def. John Isner (6 hours, 36 minutes)
John Isner also played in the second-longest Grand Slam match of all time. This time, Isner faced Kevin Anderson in the 2018 semi-finals at Wimbledon. This match featured 99 games and three tiebreakers in five sets. The fifth set lasted nearly three hours, making it the longest center court match in history.
Anderson beat Isner 7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-4 and 26-24 after six hours and 36 minutes. In the final, Anderson ended up losing to Novak Djokovic. A few months after this match, All England Club announced a change in the rules. If the final set score reaches 12-ALL, a tiebreak will be played. In 2022, the rules were updated and implemented a 10-point tiebreak when all Grand Slam tournaments reached 6-6 in the final set.
2004 French Open: Fabrice Santaro def. Arnaud Clement (6 hours, 33 minutes)
This first round match between Fabrice Saintro and Arnaud Clement lasted 6 hours and 33 minutes over two days. Due to darkness, the match was stopped at 5-All in the third set. On the second day, Santoro beat Clement 6-4, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 3-6, 16-14.
The match featured the most games (71) at the French Open since the introduction of the tiebreak in 1973. After the match, Santoro sometimes said he had difficulty breathing. However, he somehow won the next day, beating Irakuli Labadeze 6-4, 3-6, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2. Santoro ultimately lost to Olivier Mutis 6-0, 6-2, 6-3 in the third round.
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