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6/26/10 12:26 AM | Ricky Dimon
In what could not have been a surprise to anyone who watched Wimbledon on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, John Isner lost his next match to Thiemo De Bakker on Friday. De Bakker is joined in the third round by Paul-Henri Mathieu.
John Isner's second match at Wimbledon was nine hours and 51 minutes shorter than his first.
Yes, you read that correctly. Nine hours and 51 minutes.
Isner, who defeated Nicolas Mahut in a first-round marathon that is by far the longest match in tennis history (11 hours and five minutes), succumbed to Thiemo De Bakker 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 on Friday. The 6'9'' American has now played both the longest and shortest match of this tournament, as De Bakker dismissed him in a mere one hour and 14 minutes.
Understandably, Isner simply had nothing left after outlasting Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(7), 7-6(3), 70-68 in a mind-boggling affair that took three days to complete. The world No. 19 fired a record 113 aces past Mahut, but he managed none against De Bakker. Having to do little else aside from keeping the ball in play, De Bakker struck 25 winners against only five errors on his way to the third round.
Next up for the 21-year-old Dutchman is Paul-Henri Mathieu, who upset No. 13 seed Mikhail Youzhny 6-4, 2-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. Plagued by injuries throughout the entire season, Mathieu scored his biggest win of 2010 after three hours and 32 minutes.
A back-and-forth thriller saw Mathieu collapse in sets two and three, only to right the ship and force a decisive fifth frame of play. Youzhny promptly regained the momentum by breaking for a 2-0 lead and consolidating for 3-0. That's when it all fell apart one final time for the Russian, who lost six of the match's final seven games. Mathieu, who recorded 29 winners and just seven unforced errors over the last two sets, finished off the proceedings with a clutch hold at 5-4.
"My legs are tired after five sets but I feel no pain otherwise," Mathieu explained. "Now I will have to follow it up against De Bakker tomorrow. I won't have a day to recover."
Call this the marathon-men section of the draw. Interestingly, De Bakker won his first-round match 16-14 in the fifth (still 108 games fewer than Isner-Mahut) over Santiago Giraldo to set up his meeting with Isner. The De Bakker-Mathieu winner will then play the winner of Rafael Nadal vs. Philipp Petzschner. Nadal has played one five-setter and Petzschner is already two for two in the five-set department.
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