One reporter's slow descent into insanity

[chemothetherapy]

Today, John Isner and Nicholas Mahut played the longest match in tennis history (wait! keep reading! this will be interesting!). Or, that is to say, they played part of it -- the match was finally called for darkness at 59-all in the fifth set. The match has lasted 9 hours and 58 minutes so far, dwarfing the previous longest match by over three

Comments

[paul_le_fou]

I saw some of these earlier, too. Pretty astonishing. Whoever wins, we already have.

Also I heard someone suggest that it was rigged, that they were doing this on purpose. Thoughts? Did you watch any of it? What does the tennisphere say?

[chemothetherapy]

I watched the last 60 games or so (that's weird to write!) and there's no way they were doing it on purpose. Other than the general incentives (like huge sums of prize money and rankings points) that would make it crazy to do something like that, I was genuinely worried about Isner's health. The announcers were calling him "punch-drunk," and he was really wobbly just walking around to change sides every two games. Pretty much all he could do was serve, but that was enough to keep him in the match. So if it were rigged, he's crazy for going along with it for so long