What you can do in 11 hours and 5 minutes For example, if you have a clerical job, you can work eight canonical hours and then have time for a walk, shopping, playing with your children or walking around with the dog. You can sleep peacefully, wake up, have breakfast, go to sea or take a very quick jump into the mountains. Or you can stay attached to the TV and enjoy the election marathons of Mentana on La7 .

John Isner and Nicolas Mahut , on the other hand, in 2010, thought of playing tennis (almost) continuously.
It is the longest tennis match in history, perhaps unrepeatable, certainly exciting and at times dramatic with the players exhausted and tried, but also aware of breaking records.

11 hours and 5 minutes with a score of 6/4 – 3/6 – 7/6 – 6/7 and… 70/68 in favor of Isner .
Wimbledon is the perfect stage to make history: on June 22, 2010 , at 6.18 pm, the match between the American John Isner and the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut begins. It is only the first round and not even a cartel match, Mahut is number 148 in the ATP ranking and finds himself in the temple of English tennis after two qualifying matches. The place of the heroic dispute and the secondary camp number 18 .
Nothing, at the beginning, suggests the epicity of the match : everything flows linearly, the first set lasts 32 ‘, the second 29’, very fast, the third 49 ‘and the fourth 64’. Then it’s time for the fifth set. Duration
Four hundred and ninety-one minutes. Interminable (try to say it with Fantozzi’s narrative voice).
As mentioned, the meeting started on Tuesday 22 June at 18.18, was then suspended for the first time at 21.07 due to too much darkness; was resumed on Wednesday 23 at 14.05 and already at 17.45 Isner and Mahut entered history as the longest match ever, surpassing the 6 hours and 33 minutes of the Fabrice Santoro – Arnaud Clement match at Roland Garros in 2004 .
But we are only halfway: at 9.13 pm , the match is suspended for the second consecutive day on the score of 59-59 of the fifth set. It arrives on Thursday 24th and the contest lasts about an hour: it starts at 3.40 pm and ends at 4.48 pm with Isner’s victory.

John McEnroe , exalted like everyone else by the historic meeting, asked to have the two tennis players moved to the central court , but nothing was done. Furthermore, during the second day, the Ibm scoreboard that marked the score, remained blocked at 47-47 before going out . It was the programmers themselves who explained that the scoreboard was set to the maximum with this score.
If 11 hours and 5 minutes can only give a partial idea of ​​the enterprise, here are other numbers and records: 183 games have been played , (112 was the previous one in the match between Pancho Gonzales and Charlie Pasarell in 1969); 215 aces, of which 112 by Isner and 103 by Mahut (the previous one was still at 96 aces in the match Ivo Karlovic and Radek Stepanek); longest set in history with 8 hours and 11 minutes.
At the end of the match, both players were given a special recognition by the All England Club. The same club also placed a special commemorative plaque of the match in field 18: t he longest match .

We spare you the whole match. Here you can see the last game and the decisive match point, Isner’s joy, Mahut’s despair and the award ceremony:

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