Isner vs Mahut Round 2 Has Sky High Expectations at The 2011 Wimbledon Tournament
The most memorable match in the 2010 version of Wimbledon happened right off the bat. In the first round, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played the longest tennis match in history at 11 hours and five minutes. Isner eventually won 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68.
It was one for the ages and the two players have forever been linked together because of the match.
Now a year later it's deja vu all over again as the duo are slated to play each other in the first round on Tuesday and it makes you wonder if the set-up was fixed. USA Today reviews how rare this match-up really is:
Various news media outlets have been hashing out the odds on the players meeting two years in a row with varying results, but suffice it to say that they aren't high ? less than 1%.
Not that these two have a lock on such statistical anomalies.
In 2008, Frederico Gil of Portugal and Jeremy Chardy of France played in three consecutive majors (Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, all won by Chardy.)
MUST READ: Top 25 Wimbledon Matches of The Last 25 Years
Clearly somebody higher up requested this and it's not a bad idea. It's creating some serious buzz around Wimbledon which is a rarity unless it concerns Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal.
But will round two live up to the hype?
Highly doubtful. If you get past the insanity of the last time they met, this is still just the 47th ranked player going up against the 94th best.
Any sort of extra tennis would be a really great story?but a 2-3 hour match is a lot more likely than an 11 hour one.
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