By Charles Bricker
That’s four days down and 10 to go in what looks like one of the weirdest of all Wimbledons, and even Rafa Nadal’s sweat-it-out five-setter Thursday against Robin Haase can’t top the 11-hour and 5-minute John Isner triumph over Nicolas Mahut.
Yes, it’s over. And I’m sure the Bryan brothers can’t be too happy following that act onto Court 18.
On his fifth match point, Big John slapped a backhand return that forced Mahut to half-volley, leaving Isner a nice long look at a backhand passing shot. He pumped it down the line for an easy winner, then fell over on his back on the grass if relief and joy.
When it was over, a little more than an hour after they restarted at 3:30 p.m. (Wimbledon time), the standing ovation went on and on. “It stinks that someone had to lose,” said Isner, and he directed the audience toward Mahut and began clapping his exhausted adversary.
Wimbledon officials gave the two players, and chair umpire Mohammed Lahyani of Sweden, some sort of commemorative medal for participating in the longest, strangest match ever at the All England Club. One half-wondered if Lahyani also did not receive a month’s supply of Preparation H after having sat in that chair for seven hours in a row on Wednesday.
Isner rejoiced. Mahut sat in his chair, a towel over his head, looking emotionally crushed. Before they left the court, Lahyani and the players posed for photos in front of the scoreboard that read 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68.
It will be days, I think, before people run out of anecdotes about this match.
Isner normally brings seven rackets to a Slam and goes to a fresh stick about every second ball change (18 games). He ran out of fresh long ago and it was just a matter of finding the racket that had lost the least tension.
Isner has to come back tomorrow to play his second-round singles against young Dutch Thiemo deBakker. Who knows how his body is going to react — all 6-foot-9 of it.
Of course, there will be those among the 2,500 on Court 18 who will claim to have watched every one of the 980 points. Right. Was there all three days. Never got up to go to the bathroom. Hung on every point. My guess is that Isner, Mahut and Lahyani were the only ones who saw every point.
Isner, by the way, joked about his coach, Craig Boynton, telling him during a training session in Tampa last week that he was so fit he could go 10 hours.
Check that, Craig. Make it 11.
Everything else at this tournament seems like an afterthought right now, though we might get back to normal on Friday.
Nadal was down two sets to one to Haase, who was serving like Pete Sampras for most of three sets. He clubbed 13 aces in the first set alone. But Rafa buckled down and won the last two sets 6-0 and 6-3, looking very happy to get off Centre Court.
Lost somewhere in all the talk about the Isner-Mahut match was Roger Federer’s dicey first two matches, needing five sets to beat Alejandro Falla and then losing the second set to No. 152 ranked Ilija Bozoljac of Serbia. And what about Taylor Dent’s record 148 mph serve in a losing effort. Between all that and Andy Murray carrying the British banner into the third round, the women’s tournament has come up very short on publicity.
One final note worth mentioning. Robin Soderling had another boffo performance to reach the third round. He’s on course to play Nadal in the quarters.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com