The long goodbye will change rules
REPORTS CLEARLY it was no fluke result when Kevin Anderson dispatched holder Roger Federer from these Wimbledon Championships.
It took him four hours and 14 minutes.
Yesterday he took six hours and 35 minutes to reach the Wimbledon final – the longest match ever on Centre Court, winning 7-6, 6-7, 6-7, 6-4, 26-24.
This time he beat John Isner in a match in which he survived a barrage of 53 aces and the fastest serve of the Championships – 142mph.
Anderson somehow dealt with the assault and battery that came his way from a college pal who had never gone beyond the first week of this event.
Centre Court became a land of the giants as Isner, 6ft 10in and Anderson 6ft 8in, were so evenly matched that they hit the hearts out of each other.
And it meant they broke the 1969 record for the previous longest match when Pancho Gonzales beat Charlie Pasarell.
Isner has been here before – eight years ago he beat Nicolas Mahut in a game that lasted 11hrs 5mins over three days, the longest match in Wimbledon history.
Anderson said: “I don’t quite know what to say, I have such mixed emotions and I don’t feel that great as it happens.
“What I have achieved is a dream come true and it’s going to take a long time for everything to sink in.
“I will just try to relax as much as I can and prepare myself for the final. To get there is something I’ve always had such a special feeling about. Now it has happened.”
But if Anderson and Isner created history, it is now almost certain to bring about a rule change, in which the tiebreak is in future employed in the fifth set as well as all the other four.
Playing a final set of nearly three hours is not a great spectacle – nor does it do players any favours. It can also wreck schedules. Anderson agreed – saying he would not want to be part of it again.
Isner said: “A sensible option would be a tiebreak at 12-12. I think it’s long overdue.”
Both exchanged blows in the first set until the ninth game when Anderson led 5-4 with a point for the set.
Isner, suddenly under pressure, incredibly hit a monster second serve at 129 mph THE seven-time champion has dropped only one set in reaching today’s final but it was a significant one against Camilia Giorgi in the quarter-final. The Italian started sharply, serving well, and caught Williams off guard. Williams’ serve was WILLIAMS: Is so powerful but at 36 a slow starter erratic as she seemed to struggle to find her range, and Giorgi returned well. But you have to be able to build on that slow start and not allow Williams, with her powerful hitting, to find her way back in.
Kerber has to be consistent and cannot allow herself to become nervous as she did in her quarterfinal clash with Daria Kasatkina, when she needed six match points to win. WORK THE ANGLES WILLIAMS has been moving well at Wimbledon but Kerber, 30, is the more mobile player and the German has to capitalise on this.
Giorgi used the angles well in the first set against Williams and simply made her move.
In her semi-final against the spectacularly hardhitting Jelena Ostapenko, Kerber got 77 per cent of