He holds the record for the longest tennis match in history. Now US tennis star John Isner has announced the end of his career
Serving giant John Isner is bidding farewell to professional tennis at the US Open: the 38-year-old US American, who played the longest tennis match in history at Wimbledon in 2010, announced his retirement. “After over 17 years on the ATP Tour, it’s time to say goodbye to professional tennis,” Isner wrote on social media: “The US Open will be my last tournament.”
The now 38-year-old was the top-ranked US player at the end of the year in the world rankings from 2012 to 2020 and in the top 20 from 2010 to 2019. Isner has won 16 ATP singles titles, but arguably his most famous match was a 2010 first-round appearance on the “hallowed turf. “
Record is hardly to be taken away from him
13 years ago, he fought a duel with Frenchman Nicolas Mahut over three days with a pure playing time of eleven hours and five minutes. Isner won 6:4, 3:6, 6:7 (7:9), 7:6 (7:3), 70:68 – and hit 113 aces in the process.
Isner and Mahut will hardly be able to take the record away, because all four Grand Slam tournaments have now introduced a tiebreak in the fifth set, unlike back then. At the beginning of 2022, all four “majors” agreed to play a tiebreak with ten winning points at 6:6 in the deciding set. Marathon matches like the one between Isner and Mahut will thus become virtually impossible.
