Thanks for joining us for a special tracker this afternoon. We may even do it again sometime – we bow to your suggestions, which you can always send to shout@joe.ie.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Adios.
“You don’t get tired out here,” says Isner, who is scheduled to play a doubles match later on. “That’s a mean joke right there,” he adds when reminded of it.
“John deserved the win,” says an exceptionally gracious Mahut. “He’s a champion, he served I don’t know how many aces. But we both played the greatest match.”
The French have gone back up in our estimations after that.
Only a bit, mind.
We’ll never see the likes of that one. It’s so historic that there’s a special presentation at the end of it, “to mark a chapter in the history of Wimbledon and the game itself”.
There’s an uneasy moment for Tiny Tim Henman as himself and Ann Jones are introduced to present the accolades.
“Ann Jones, the former Wimbledon champion, of course,” says yer man, “and Tim Henman…”
He adds, uncertain and after a pregnant pause, “a former British number one.”
Way to go. There’s never a bad time to rub in a Briton’s failings.
And it’s all over! Isner returns a booming serve to the feet of Mahut, who produces the most unbelievable (in the circumstances, it was unbelievable) pick-up to get it back across the net.
However, it sits up nicely for Isner and he puts away the passing shot to Mahut’s right. An incredible match, for longevity if little else.
Both players are beginning to wilt. Mahut fails to have the same control on his service game and suddenly, Isner has a FIFTH MATCH POINT!
Someone has to win this one. I think that’s the rule. Couldn’t they just call it a draw, give de Bakker a bye in the next round and split the winnings?
That would be the fairest conclusion, surely. They do it in poker.
An ace, his 112th, at 135mph, brings it to 15-30.
Another unreturnable takes it to 30-30 and Mahut fails to get two Isner second serves back into play. Isner was in a hole there, but he hauled himself out of it.
Has Isner reached breaking point? Mahut is beginning to get on top and it’s 0-30…
I went to make a cup of tea. Mahut won another service game, without much fuss.
Think I’ll have a bath in a few minutes.
If you haven’t been paying attention to today’s World Cup action, holders Italy are going out, it seems. You can also keep tabs on that one here. Who says JOE doesn’t look after you?
This is affecting everyone. “We’re approaching 11 hours for this fifth set,” says the Beeb’s boyo. It’s actually 11 hours for the whole match, but in a strange way I can see how he’d make that mistake. There comes a point when numbers don’t really matter.
“This has gone beyond a joke,” says David in Navan. “There has hardly been a break point. You have to wonder if both are just afraid to take a chance and are just waiting for the other one to make a mistake. Surely after 132 games you would change strategy a bit.”
Possibly, David. I’m not sure what I think, to be honest. I can see why they’d continue in the same vein.
Mahut wins another one to love.
Isner is one powerful son-of-a-gun. Mahut can’t get near most of his serves, and he wins another one.
Hmmm, I’m slowly beginning to realise that this is not like a normal tracker. For instance, there are no half-time breaks, no breaks in play as one of the players feigns injury and another one knocks it out of play for him to receive attention, no all-too-easy 90-minute time limit.
So I’m wondering: how do I get to the toilet?
Another Isner service game, another simple hold. The men’s singles final had been due to take place on Sunday week but they’re already planning to postpone it until nearer Christmas.
“If this started as a normal match,” says Rusedski, “we’d need a tie-break now.”
This set has been virtually the same as 11 sets, all going to tie-breakers.
Mahut loses the first point of his service game and It’s An Opportunity!!! shrieks the no-name beside Rusedski in the BBC commentary box. But Mahut zips down a few body serves which are like throw eggs at the Statue of Liberty.
Isner chips a return high across the net and Mahut leaps off the ground to power a winning smash. He looked sprightly there, did the Frenchman, and he closes out another game.
For the second time in a few minutes Greg Rusedski offers a lame joke about The Neverending Story. It’s that, wrapped in Groundhog Day, with a splash of Ben-Hur.
Isner gets lucky with a net-cord at the start of game number 129, but then it’s whack! crash! boom!
Game Isner.
And with a few blinks of an eye, Mahut holds his serve again.
We’ve reached the ten-hour, 30-minute mark. This set has gone on 457 minutes, or seven hours and 37 minutes. It’s a “where were you?” moment, says Rusedski.
Lucky you. You’re with JOE, and you’ll always remember that.
Ace number 106 for John Isner closes out another service game for the American, who lost just one point in that one.
Mahut is 4/5 at the present time, with Isner 10/11. It’s changing all the time, though – you can see the latest betting here.
I wonder at what point this will get annoying. We’re ten hours and 20-odd minutes in, and there’s no real sign of it ending yet. That would take one of these two to win at least four points against the serve, which looks mighty unlikely.
Favouritism has swapped around 1100 times during the game, I’m told. Record after record after record.
Back at the ranch, Mahut holds his serve to love.
We actually had a rally there. It was three or four shots, but that counts. Mahut wins a couple of points against the serve – it’s 40-30 and the commentators reckon “it’s a half-chance”. That’s how much the serve is dominating here.
They are automatons.
The commentators are in agreement that Mahut looks the more energetic of these two gladiators. Isner is certainly leggy against the serve but he hasn’t looked like slowing up on his own service yet. I thought this tracker would just be a nice little interlude, but I’m beginning to think I’ve missed Charon’s boat and am reduced to walking on the bank of the Styx for 100 years.
Mahut brings his ton of aces up in another cosy service game.
At one point in that previous game, Mahut threw up the ball to serve but instead of swinging his racquet he faltered and almost fell. In a normal game you would put that down to a slip, but here I’m not so sure. Both these guys must be painfully close to the bottom of the barrel, and after the initial adrenaline rush wears off you never know what might happen.
Anyway, Isner booms down aces number 103 and 104 to hold his serve again.
For the 56th time, Mahut serves to stay in the match. For the 56th time. That sounds ridiculous. Anyway, aces number 97, 98 and 99 help him to another game. This has started precisely the way it finished yesterday.
Mahut narrowly misses with an exquisite lob but that’s as good as it gets. Isner emulates the Frenchman by holding his serve to love.
Mahut certainly looks in better nick. Maybe his frame makes it easier for him to recover – he’s a teeny 6’3″ to Isner’s 6’9″.
He holds his serve with ease.
“John Isner’s movement is just lacking a bit at the moment,” says Rusedski. Understandable, I would’ve thought, but maybe I’m just the generous type.
We’re away, with Isner serving. He double faults to leave it 0-15, and Mahut questions a line call which would have meant another double and left it 0-30. It goes to deuce but Isner hits his 100th ace to close out the game.
For anyone interested in the scoreboard malfunctions yesterday, that issue has been resolved. The electronic scoreoard reads 59-59. From the crowd in and around Court 18, there must be no-one over on Centre Court. Maybe the Queen is there on her own.
There has been 193 aces, including 98 for Isner, and 30 double faults.
Break points won? Two.
If that continues we’ll be here for a while yet.
John Isner arrived at Wimbledon at 10am this morning, Greg Rusedski tells us. So much for a lie-on.
Anyway, Mahut and Isner are knocking the ball over and back to warm up. They look as fresh as you might have hoped for, in that they’re standing up and able to swing their racquets.
Mahut and Isner have braved the crowds to reach Court 18 – these two have become overnight celebrities, and it matters not a jot that no matter who wins here may be better off jumping on a plane immediately afterwards, for all the resistance they’re going to offer when they face Thiemo de Bakker in the second round.
In order to give these two a bit of a lie-on earlier, which it was generally felt they deserved, this one was due to recommence not before 3.30pm. If the lads were hoping that the two women’s games scheduled from 12 noon on Court 18 would go on for ages – just to give them a bit more time to peel themselves off their beds – they were to be sorely disappointed.
It took just 28 games to resolve those two, with Agnieszka Radwanska winning 6-2 6-0 and Flavia Pennetta coming through 6-1 6-1.
To put what these lads have done into some sort of perspective, the final set is already longer than the previous longest ever match, Fabrice Santoro v Arnaud Clement at the French Open in 2004, which lasted six hours and 33 minutes.
Apparently, both players have been on intravenous drips overnight to stave off dehydration. They also played almost all of yesterday without any protection from the stands or the clouds, so as well as being wrecked, they’re also probably sunburnt to within an inch of their lives.
All told, it’s impossible to know what kind of shape they’ll be in this afternoon. We’ll find out soon.
For those of you interested in events elsewhere at Wimbledon today, Britain’s Latest Tennis Darling, Andy Murray, has advanced without much trouble to the third round. He beat Jarkko Nieminen 6-3 6-4 6-2 on Centre Court. Maria Sharapova won 6-1 6-4 against Ioana Roluca Olaru.
But most of us are really interested in the record-breakers. Mahut v Isner, the match which stands at 59-59 in the fifth. It’s already gone on exactly TEN HOURS over two days, with play suspended shortly before 9.30pm yesterday evening.
