It was five hours ago that I was reporting on the Roddick-Llodra match.  At the time, the Isner-Mahut match was called due to darkness at 2 sets each.  Most people felt the set would be over an hour later.

Not. Even. Close.

More than 6 hours later, with over 100 games played, a decision was still not made.  Throughout this match, Mahut looked the fresher of the two, but Isner just kept hitting big serves.  Toward the end, Isner was having a hard time serving, and was spinning serves in, but opting to hit big forehands instead.  This was an adjustment that Isner made when he was losing strength serving.

Isner had several match points, one around 9-10 when Mahut double faulted twice to 30-40, but hit an ace.  At around 33-32, Isner found some strength and got to 15-40, but was still unable to break.  At 59-58, Isner got to another match point, but was still unable to convert.

At 59-all, Mahut complained about the lack of light, just after 9 PM in London, and the referee agreed to this.  Isner seemed to want to play more despite lacking the energy to serve.

Isner served 98 aces and Mahut served 95 aces.  Both shattered the record by Ivo Karlovic who had 78 aces in a match that he lost in Davis Cup.

This match broke all sorts of records.  118 games in a set.  163 games in the match.  The match currently at 9 hours 58 minutes.  The longest set was 25-23 prior to this.  Both players have won more games than this.

At 58-all, they were allowed a break, and then Isner came back to hold.

So perhaps it’s just fitting that after 118 games, another day will decide this match.

So completely surreal.

So why did it go so long?  It was a combination of two factors.  First, Isner’s big serving.  He was serving so huge that Mahut basically had no break points until extremely late into the fifth set.  Second, Isner had a hard time moving since at least 30-all.  Mahut placed the ball better and looked fresher, so even when Mahut had to hit groundstrokes, he had a good chance to win the point if they had a rally.  There was a point in the fifth set at 33-32 where Isner had enough energy to contest Mahut’s serve, but until then, no such luck.

A quick comment about other matches.  Federer was taken to four sets and a tiebreak by qualifier, 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(5).  Dent lost easily to Novak Djokovic after a tight first set.  Davydenko lost to Brands in four sets.  Monfils and Clement won in four sets.  Istomin outlasted Schuettler in five sets.  American Brendan Evans pushed Montanes to five sets, but Montanes won.  Hanescu won in four sets and Kohlschreiber beat Gabashvili 9-7 in the fifth.

Back to Isner-Mahut.

Matches like this last long assuming both players continue to serve well and neither cramp and there aren’t many games that are contested.  All of those applied to this amazing marathon match.

And the winner gets Thiemo de Bakker who also had to play a fifth set.  And that set would have gone a long time by normal standards.  It was 16-14.