Post by justinbest on Jul 20, 2010 11:06:33 GMT -5
John Isner won the longest match in tennis history at Wimbledon when he beat Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68.
The match was full of records but one key question remains: why did this tennis “anomaly” happen?
John Isner said in his interview that he doesn’t know really why. He thought that both players served really well and that perhaps it was meant to happen.
Nicolas Mahut also said that he didn’t know why the match lasted so long.
I personally think that the main “culprit” for this result is John Isner. There are two elements of his game that forced the match into such a marathon.
His serve is in my opinion one of the top 3 serves on ATP. (The other two being Karlovic and Roddick)
But his movement is very poor on grass.
John Isner is a big guy at 6 foot 9 (206 cm) and if he wants to move that big body even moderately well, he NEEDS good ground support (traction) from which he can push into every direction.
But grass doesn’t allow that. As soon as you push from the ground too roughly, you slip. So it’s really tough for John to change direction or start running quickly.
His best surface for movement is definitely the hard court where can get a good grip with his shoes.
So once John returned the ball, he was immediately in defense and couldn’t get out of it. His returns are also not the best and he was really struggling to play from the baseline in majority of points.
The match was full of records but one key question remains: why did this tennis “anomaly” happen?
John Isner said in his interview that he doesn’t know really why. He thought that both players served really well and that perhaps it was meant to happen.
Nicolas Mahut also said that he didn’t know why the match lasted so long.
I personally think that the main “culprit” for this result is John Isner. There are two elements of his game that forced the match into such a marathon.
His serve is in my opinion one of the top 3 serves on ATP. (The other two being Karlovic and Roddick)
But his movement is very poor on grass.
John Isner is a big guy at 6 foot 9 (206 cm) and if he wants to move that big body even moderately well, he NEEDS good ground support (traction) from which he can push into every direction.
But grass doesn’t allow that. As soon as you push from the ground too roughly, you slip. So it’s really tough for John to change direction or start running quickly.
His best surface for movement is definitely the hard court where can get a good grip with his shoes.
So once John returned the ball, he was immediately in defense and couldn’t get out of it. His returns are also not the best and he was really struggling to play from the baseline in majority of points.
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