Wimbledon, 70-68 and Much Out-of-Date

When a tennis score resembles a basketball score, it is bound to attract a lot of attention. So when John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played the longest match in tennis history during the first round of the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, the world took notice.

But once the dust settled, it was easy to see how absurd such a match was.

The fifth set of the three-day match between Isner-Mahut was won by Isner 70-68. Isner won the match 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68. According to USA Today, the match lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes and had 980 points.

Was the marathon match a moment to savor, or a moment to deplore?

Wimbledon has an antiquated system of not allowing the fifth set to be decided on a tiebreaker. For women, who play the best two of three, it would be the third set in which play would continue until someone won by at least two games.

Everywhere else in the civilized world, the tiebreaker is allowed even in the decisive set. Other tournaments have long decided that there is nothing wrong with winning 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4).

"Nothing like this will ever happen again. Ever," Isner said of his historic match, in an interview heard on KYW Newsradio based in Philadelphia.

Let's hope not. If Wimbledon doesn't come to its senses over this issue now, when will it ever? Predictably, Isner was totally spent after his epic encounter, and was easily ousted in the second round by an opponent he could probably have beaten under normal circumstances. Furthermore, the three-day marathon pushed back the schedules of other players awaiting the outcome of the match. Instead of having nice spacing between matches, their matches would become more compacted. Finally, common sense would tell us that the wear and tear on the grass surface was greater than normal, since the final set lasted ten times as long as a normal set would. The surface goes from complete grass covering to patches of dirt over the two weeks, and this match accelerated that process.

Not only is Wimbledon behind the times in terms of not allowing a fifth-set (or women's third-set) tiebreaker, it also has clung to the quaint rule of requiring players to wear all white. In the world of brilliant colors, fans deserve to see a full array of colors as well as designs. Requiring white severely limits the fashion expressions of the players. All the wonderful color patterns we see in modern tennis go begging at Wimbledon because of this outmoded tradition.

For the longest time, because of the British version of Blue Laws, the British Open golf tournament did not allow play on Sunday and had its tournament run from Wednesday thru Saturday. But at least it caught up with the times and now finishes on Sunday. Wimbledon, on the other hand, still takes the first Sunday off as a traditional rest day. The spacing of the tournament would be much better if they played on the first Sunday, but we should be thankful that they at least play on the second Sunday.

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, the site where Wimbledon is held, takes its name literally and still holds the tournament on grass. If Wimbledon wishes to be the premier Grand Slam event, it must understand that grass is the worst surface on which to identify the best player in the world. Winning at Wimbledon, on grass, requires less skill than winning at any other Grand Slam event. All a player needs to be competitive is a booming serve. The likes of Goran Ivanišević, who had a big serve but not a well-rounded game, have won at Wimbledon in recent years. And Venus Williams, who is very erratic with her groundstrokes and rarely shows a complete grasp of tennis, has nevertheless won Wimbledon no fewer than five times by relying on an overpowering serve. The grass surface wears down over the fortnight to such an extent that heavy servers gain more and more of an advantage as the event progresses.

Wimbledon also calls its champions "gentlemen's singles" and "ladies' singles" winners, unlike most other events that simply have a men's and women's champion. Having a public address announcer say "advantage Mrs. Lloyd" was also not the best way to identify Chris Evert during the height of her career, and points to the stodginess of Wimbledon.

If the event staged annually at the All-England Club wishes to have credibility in the 21^st Century, then it needs to keep up with the times.

Sources:

USA Today

KYW Newsradio, Philadelphia, Pa.

www.nytimes.com