Last year, the biggest story of Wimbledon wasn’t Nadal or Federer or Serena Williams or any of the usual cast of characters. It was a pair of zombies out on Court 18 by the names of John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. Well, whether by design or coincidence, the tennis gods pair the tennis zombies back together for a rematch in the first round this year. Unfortunately, this year’s battle didn’t live up to last year’s insanity. That didn’t stop The Guardian’s live blogger Paolo Bandini from having some fun with the match.

After the jump, we have Paolo’s play-by-play of the revenge of the zombie tennis stars. Continue reading →

Eleven hour and five minutes of pure tennis insanity. That’s how long the first round match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut lasted in the longest match in tennis history. Over that span, the pair played 183 games. By comparison, Roger Federer played 159 games in total en route to the Wimbledon title last year. In the end, it was John Isner who won 92 games to emerge victorious.

Yesterday, the match was suspended at 59-59 in the fifth set but the real highlight was Xan Brooks’ amazing live blog. Today, it was up to Paolo Bandini of The Guardian to follow-up the zombie-filled insanity of yesterday’s live blog. So here’s today’s zombified live blog of Isner vs. Mahut. Continue reading →