Nicolas Mahut, who along with John Isner famously played in the longest match in tennis history at Wimbledon, returned to the grass courts at the International Tennis Hall of Fame Tuesday in his first competition since his epic match. He won his first round match at the Campbell’s Hall of Fame Tennis Championships defeating Alejandro Falla of Columbia 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in a match that lasted 1 hour and 23 minutes – a mere 9 hours and 42 minutes less than his epic 70-68 in the fifth set loss to Isner in the first round of Wimbledon.
Mahut, a wild card entry into the only professional grass court tournament in the United States, battled through temperatures in the mid 90s to fend off Falla, who famously led Roger Federer two-sets-to-love in the first round of Wimbledon before losing.
Joked Mahut of the hot conditions in Newport, “Nothing is worse than what I did in Wimbledon. Every match, I pray it will be easier. I can’t complain any more.”
Mahut said he thinks of his Wimbledon match “every minute” but despite the lingering pain of losing the match, he said he gains strength in the encouragement he receives by fans. “Every two minutes, people come to me to congratulate me. It is an unbelievable feeling,” said Mahut. “This time it’s really different. People are coming up to me; they are really nice. I took all the energy from the people and that’s why I won today.”
John Branch of the New York Times writes a nice column on Mahut linked here: http://straightsets.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/mahut-returns-and-wins-minus-nine-hours/
Top seed Sam Querrey, who won his first grass-court title last month at Queen’s Club and was a finalist in Newport last summer, defeated countryman Jesse Levine 6-3, 6-3. In another all-American match up, Mardy Fish defeated Michael Russell 6-1, 6-2 and defending champion Rajeev Ram overcame Spain’s Ivan Navarro 6-3, 7-6 (3). Sergei Bubka of Ukraine, the son of the world-record holding Olympic pole vaulter by the same name, won in his ATP World Tour debut, defeating Australian Chris Guccione 7-6 (0, 6-4.
For more information on the Hall of Fame Championships, go to www.TennisFame.com