The longest point in pro-tennis and the longest match

You'd think the longest match in tennis would be some kind of memorable classic, right? Well, wrong. A not-altogether-unintentionally hilarious NYT piece:

Twenty-five years ago, on Sept. 24, 1984, Nelson and Jean Hepner, who were ranked No. 93 and No. 172 in the world, engaged in a 29-minute, 643-shot rally that remains the longest point played in a professional tennis match.

For comparison, during a match last month, Andy Murray and Julien Benneteau had a rally that lasted 53 shots, and it was the longest either of them could remember playing in competition.

The rally between Nelson and Hepner occurred in the first round of the $50,000 Virginia Slims-sponsored Ginny tournament at the Raintree Swim and Racquet Club in Richmond, Va., with Nelson finally prevailing, 6-4, 7-6 (11).

The 6-hour-31-minute marathon was itself the longest match in tennis history for nearly 20 years and remains the longest match completed on a single day.

And then some great lines:

Both Nelson and Hepner seem vaguely embarrassed that their names are in the record books.

Er, yes - I would be too!

The rally that put Nelson-Dunbar and Hepner in the record books came at set point for Hepner, who was ahead, 11-10, in the second-set tie breaker, which lasted 1:47 on its own.

“There was tons of lobbing,” Nelson-Dunbar said. “I would try to come in and she’d lob me again.”

After winning the point, Nelson-Dunbar collapsed with cramps in her legs. The chair umpire, who apparently maintained consciousness throughout the 643-stroke point, actually called a time-violation warning, but Nelson-Dunbar pulled it together and got back to the baseline to begin the next point.

How does a point go on for 29 minutes before one player or the other hits a winner or makes a mistake?

“We were both pretty much standing on the baseline lobbing,” Nelson-Dunbar said.

Hepner recalled, “I was just really concentrating and was very consistent.”

Two points later, Nelson-Dunbar closed out the match and apologized to the lines officials for its length.

“I felt so bad for them,” she said. “They were sitting out there so long, and they must have been falling asleep.”

But imagine this...

Among the astonishing elements to the match was this: If Hepner had won the epic rally, she would have forced a third set, and who knows how long the match might have lasted.

Her determination is scary

Federer-Nadal

I was too tired to stay up and watch the Australian Open final live but I did manage to get up just in time to watch the prize distribution ceremony -- live. And boy oh boy, what a ceremony it turned out to be. For those who don't follow tennis, Federer, who lost to Nadal, burst into tears during his speech and couldn't speak for a while. While he recovered, the trophy was presented to Nadal, who then, to his credit, walked over to Federer and put an arm around him. Federer twisted away, said he would speak first since he didn't want to have the last word, rattled off a few words, posed red-eyed alongside Nadal with his runners-up trophy and then ran away as fast as he could.

It was the most touching moment I've seen -- not to mention the most emotional -- since Jana Novotna, sobbing away, rested her head on the on the Duchess of Kent's shoulder at Wimbledon in 1993.

Here, for your comparison are the two videos. Watch how Federer tries to speak jauntily at first, and how suddenly he starts crying:

Kevin Drum puts into words my own feelings about Nadal:

When I first saw Nadal play a few years ago, he was a kid with stringy black hair, a sneer on his lips, always dressed in a muscle shirt, and hitting the absolute stuffing out of the ball. "This guy's a thug!" I thought, a tennis-playing Terminator — but of course nothing could be further from the truth. As I quickly learned, Nadal may very well be the nicest, sweetest, most generous tennis machine on the planet. He's almost too nice. It's hard to convince people that this is one of the great sport rivalries of all time when they spend more time hugging each other than trash talking.

That said, I wonder if having your opponent, the one you just lost to, come over and put his arm around you is such a good thing after all. I am pretty sure that I would twist away from any embrace, howsoever well-intended, just as Federer did. And there was something rather incongruous about the 22-year old Nadal telling the 27-year old Federer that he was a great champion. This is, after all, exactly what a veteran champion tells the ousted up-and-coming challenger (Graf said almost this exactly after beating Hingis in their bad-tempered 1999 French Open final). To have the newly crowned king tell his predecessor that he will always be considered great is probably equivalent to telling him that he is over the hill (this is my own twisted interpretation, I am sure Nadal meant it only in the nicest way possible).

All that said, I think all talk of Federer not winning any more Grand Slams is a little premature. I think he almost certainly will surpass Sampras ' record and win a few more Grand Slams. What seems less likely now is the possibility of his winning the French and becoming the first man since Agassi to have won all four Grand Slams. And of course, the possibility that Nadal will be that man has risen. Of course, one can hope both will go on to win all four majors -- wouldn't that be great? Here's hoping ...