The tennis match was played between American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut at the Wimbledon Championships, starting on June 22 and finishing on the 24th.  The match eventually took 11 hours and 5 minutes, spread over three days. The match was won by Isner 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68.

The fifth set was the longest set in history as determined by both duration and number of games and the set itself would have broken the previous longest match record of 6 hours 33 minutes.

The US Open is the only of the Grand Slams to use a tie-breaker in the final set for singles matches, the other tournaments use an advantage set, meaning they keep playing until there is a winner by two games clear.

As you can see, this can mean a game can go on indefinitely. I hope the others don’t follow the US example and remove the advantage set, as we could miss out on such dramatic games as this.

Athletes in most Olympic sports and many other international sports do not get anywhere near as much as tennis players, and most likely work just as hard, but it is just the way it is. It comes down to market demands, if people are paying to watch them play, to buy products etc, then there will be money in sponsorship and gate fees that can be passed on to the players in the form of payments and prize money.

If women tennis players want to get paid more, they should entertain us more, increase the quality of their play, make reasons for people to come and watch, and give us value for money. I am not saying that they are all like this, but I see are too many fat, lazy, bitchy, rich kids which are not good for the image of females in sport. If you looked at most of the high-profile women’s sports, they don’t need a pay rise – they are getting paid too much already.

Related Pages: Wimbledon, Tennis