John Isner and Nicolas Mahut have done something that no professional tennis player has ever done before (and no sane person would ever want to do): play tennis for 8 straight hours.
This isn’t part of some kind of crazy Guinness World Records attempt, it’s an opening-round match at Wimbeldon. The match actually started last night, but had to be suspended when it got too dark (do they not have electric light in England?). They resumed the match this morning and, as it currently stands, John Isner leads Nicolas Mahut 54-53 in the fifth set. You read that right. 54-53. They have played more than 90 games in the fifth set alone. Ridiculous.
We’ll update you when there’s a winner.
UPDATE: The match has now lasted a staggering 9 and a half hours. To put that into perspective, the old record was 6 hours, 33 minutes (set in a 2004 during the French Open). Still no winner.
UPDATE 2: Once again, the match has been suspended because of darkness. It is now tied 59-59. The two have played for over 10 hours. The match will resume tomorrow (Thursday) morning. Wow.
Update 3: It’s now Thursday afternoon and Isner has finally won. The match was over 11 hours long. The final score in the fifth set was 70-68.
this is like never ending gut-check – this is truly intense.These guys are tough… way tougher than those soccer sissies