Tennis:American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut took a chainsaw to the tennis record books at Wimbledon today when they became embroiled in the longest match ever played.
The two players were locked at 50-50 in the fifth set of their first-round match, halted after the fourth set yesterday, having been in combat for nearly nine hours on Court 18 with no end in sight.
Neither player had dropped serve in the fifth set, which alone was approaching six hours, although Mahut had saved match points when serving at 32-33.
The previous record of six hours 33 minutes was set when Fabrice Santoro beat Arnaud Clement at the French Open in 2004.