Talk:Longest tennis match records

1987
I always thought the 1987 relegation tie between the USA and Germany in Hartford included the longest Davis Cup match: J. McEnroe v. B. Becker 6-4 13-15 10-8 2-6 2-6. This article  seems to have the match duration at 6h 38min. Does anyone have any sources to contradict this? If not, the article should be corrected accordingly. --GeekOgre (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC) This is a moot point now that the Isner-Mahut match happened, but the time of 6hrs 38mins was unofficial (I'm not sure in what way [there was either a shorter official time for some reason OR there are no official times kept, I am unaware of rules regarding time keeping during Davis Cup matches]), but that was mentioned several times throughout ESPN's coverage of the Isner-Mahut match. Schmittz (talk) 16:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Wimbledon 2009
Many useful stats from the 09 final are here (http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2009/07/05/ap/headlines/d998fvjg0.txt) 20:00, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Before/After the tiebreaker
Is there much point keeping the pre-tiebreak record for most games on here now that it has been broken by Mahut/Isner, since the rationale for it being here (implied by the introduction) is that records such as that have not been broken because of the introduction of the tie-break?

edit: I see someone agrees and has removed it anyway. Nevermind.

Wimbledon 2010 Mahut/Isner match
If you have come here to see the records that the currently running game is breaking, you need to go to this version of the article: [|last version of this page before today's record breaking match]. Why people see the need to update this minute by minute is beyond me!94.196.233.49 (talk) 18:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks like Original Research too. Surely this page shouldn't be updated until a write-up exists elsewhere - e.g. a newspaper article when the match is complete. Bryces (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

More statistics: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/wimbledon/7852548/Wimbledons-longest-match-John-Isner-v-Nicolas-Mahut-in-numbers.html

I agree this page should be revised back to its previous version until the Isner/Mahut match is final and official. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.71.133.49 (talk) 18:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Spoil sports! ;) The facts are perfectly verifiable. Yes, technically the game isn't in the books yet, but Wikipedia is not paper!. One of the things our readers love about Wikipedia is how up-to-date it is. It probably wouldn't hurt to include both the old records and the current records in the article, though. --Tango (talk) 19:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I like this idea.--Attitude2000 (talk) 19:34, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The fifth set is not around for 9+ hours, if the whole match is just over 9 hours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.7.239.188 (talk) 19:31, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, 59 plus 59 is 118, not 108. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.31.146.82 (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

It's also got another record: last match to be played under UDEINSE Rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.237.28 (talk) 00:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The article reads "As of 2010, the Wimbledon Championships do not employ a tiebreaker in the fifth set" - incorrect, surely? The 2008 and 2009 finals both went past 6-6. Manbilong (talk) 17:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Sentence
Consider adding this sentence to the end of the "Longest match ever:" heading, "The fifth set alone surpasses the previous record for the length of the longest tennis match in tennis history". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.111.49.178 (talk) 18:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from M337aw, 23 June 2010
editsemiprotected

Please change the longest tennis match in terms of games played to the match played between Mahut and Isner in the 2nd round of Wimbledon 2010

M337aw (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * C T J F 8 3 pride 01:51, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Length
Currently this documents longest matches by time and by games, what about by points? Some games go on and on and on, with 10 game points or more... Or returning to deuce forever. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 09:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Protection
Please add the protection template (the "lock" template) to the page to indicate protection. 76.66.195.196 (talk) 09:24, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Done Spigot  Map  13:20, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Time
Is the new longest game, also the longest game according to elapsed time? (As opposed to play time) ie, it's going to be played on three days. I assume that some rain-delayed matches may be longer 76.66.195.196 (talk) 09:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC) It's according to play time. It would otherwise be over 48+ hours if it is elapsed time over three days. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.124.89.117 (talk) 21:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Longest Tie-Break
Maybe it's a good idea to add the longest tie-break too? I think Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe played a very long tie-break once. I don't have any details though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.117.226.58 (talk) 10:19, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I have added a See also link to Longest tiebreaker in tennis. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Isner vs. Mahut - Duration
Under the "All Time" section, this match is listed as lasting 11 hours, 6 minutes. In two other places on this page (in the caption of the header picture, and under "Wimbledon#Men") it is noted as lasting 11 hours, 5 minutes. Which is it? You really need to pick one. --Cogniac (talk) 18:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I changed that "6" to "5"; that's what it says on the article about the match, so we'll go with that. Thanks! &mdash; Timneu22 · &#32; talk 18:14, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Longest men's 3-set match
Given that 5-set matches only happen at Grand Slams now, perhaps we should include the Rafael Nadal-Novak Djokovic 2009 Madrid Masters SF as the longest ever men's 3 set match, at 4hrs, 3 min. Anyone agree? Here is the citation for that: http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2009/12/Best-Matches-Of-The-Year.aspx. Supertigerman (talk) 20:51, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Tennis at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Someone should find out which match was played first:
 * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs. Milos Raonic, or
 * Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares vs. Tomáš Berdych and Radek Štěpánek

Whichever was first, did set one of the records and held it until 3 Aug, when Federer vs. del Potro broke it. Apanuggpak (talk) 00:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, matter resolved. Apanuggpak (talk) 01:20, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Gonzales/Passarell
Where is that famous match between these two in 1969? It's got an extensive write up in Pancho Gonzales' article, and is still the second-longest ever in terms of games. The whole article does seem to major on recent matches, which makes me wonder how accurate it is? 92.10.159.189 (talk) 22:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It was listed before the Isner-Mahut match. Does it hold a current record? PrimeHunter (talk) 23:17, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Original research
Many of the tables in this article are not referenced. Every one of these is original research, and should be removed. For the sake of clarity, I'm not challenging the particular matches listed (though they should be referenced): I'm saying that no statement about something being the longest, or biggest, or oldest, or any other superlative, should appear anywhere in Wikipedia unless it is referenced to a reliable source saying that it is the longest etc. To say that this or that match is the longest without a reliable source that says so is original research, and not permitted. That is why I have tagged this article for original research. --ColinFine (talk) 10:09, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, I understand WP:OR for example in the case of chemistry experiments, where someone might do some experiment at home and report it. Now, WP likes secondary sources, and some of the reports here might be primary, but don't seem to be what I would call OR. Going out in the back yard and playing tennis would be OR here. Only specific tournaments are listed. Some high school or college matches might have gone longer, but we don't care. Gah4 (talk) 19:15, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Could be worth investigating
Below is the WTA best of 5 set era.

Spinning off a table to a separate page
Hi everyone,

I've been updating New Zealand tennis players' pages for several years, but only recently decided to create an identity so that I could create pages (if necessary - haven't done so yet) or do other edits that were not allowed by IP-only editors.

I've been doing quite a bit of research for the women's matches on this page, because there are additions to it from current tournaments every week. What I would like to suggest is that the table on this page, which now has over 70 entries, be restricted to the top 20 (plus ties), but with the whole of the table spun off to its own separate page because it's increasing so quickly.

I would also like to suggest that the ITF tournaments have more information included so that people can look up the exact tournament through the ITF website or Google if they don't have a Wikipedia page of their own (which nothing under $60,000 does), especially where the country name is the only reference. Italy, for example, has around 30 ITF women's tournaments each year, so how are people wanting more information supposed to know which tournament is referred to? As an absolute minimum, the date needs to be included, even if the location within the country isn't.

Also, is there a way, when inserting a new entry at (for example) position 25, for all the position numbers below that to be automatically increased by one? It's a pain in the fingers to have to change every single one manually.

Any help here would be appreciated.

Yetanotherkiwi (talk) 01:36, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

It's nearly six months since my original post, and there's still no reaction. I've added a few more entries to this list, which is now around 90 matches, and I have another 60 in my notes which are still to be included (and there will be more to come as I work through the results, even though the tennis tours are suspended at the moment). Is there anyone out there who actually looks at these pages?

Yetanotherkiwi (talk) 10:44, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

The women list
I think it would be better if there were two separate lists for the women's matches: one for the wta tour and grand slams and other for ITF tournaments. The longest men's matches are those that are played to best of five so in the list it will only be grand slams and davis cup matches. And that is a good thing because we, the tennis fans, know almost every player. On the other hand, all women's matches are played to the best of three, and there are longer matches in ITF circuit because the players at that level are less capable of hitting winners (many balloons from the baseline). If you go from now to twenty or thirty years ago the list is going to be infinit and always incomplete, and the wta tour and grand slams matches will be hard to find. Eventually, you will have a list full in 90% of matches with players that no one has ever heard of, and that is far from ideal i think. It is different if there are two lists, one main (WTA and grand slams) and one secundary (ITF futures or challenger series). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Senisp (talk • contribs) 23:33, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree and disagree. Absolutely we need a list of WTA tournaments only. But I'm not sure we need minor league records at all. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Notes in Women's singles table
I edited the Women's singles table notes using  and   based on this template to get the note links working. This also included cleaning up a few misplaced notes like matches identified as happening on the same day which weren't etc.

The links now seem to work fine. However I could not get the notelist at the bottom of the table to show up as "note 1", "note 2", "note 3", etc, even though that is what the  and   template documentation specifies. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Kvwiki1234 (talk) 19:56, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Why is number of games ignored?
The opening sentence of the article says, This article details longest tennis match records by duration or number of games. Only it doesn't. Of the tables that follow, only the Doubles section has separate tables for greatest duration and largest number of games; all the tables above them have matches ranked by duration only. In both men's singles and overall, the 1969 Gonzalez–Pasarell match had far more games – 112 – than any in the two tables besides Isner–Mahut. For comparison, the Nelson–Hepner match, which is 6th overall in hours played, had 23 games! If the article is going to do what it says on the tin, this needs to be addressed. 2001:BB6:4713:4858:6CC4:2178:1A70:4EDA (talk) 11:57, 5 June 2021 (UTC)


 * I added a table of five matches to the "Overall" section here. I am not an expert on tennis stats, so if anybody knows of another match that should go in, they can add it. 2001:BB6:4713:4858:7957:9F2:1700:BD54 (talk) 09:25, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I found another three, so eight matches so far. 2001:BB6:4713:4858:7957:9F2:1700:BD54 (talk) 11:35, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Plus two, so we're at a healthy ten matches. 2001:BB6:4713:4858:7957:9F2:1700:BD54 (talk) 14:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)