Isner welcomes new rule

Tennis’s marathon man John Isner has welcomed Wimbledon’s decision to introduce tiebreaks at 12-12 in the final set.

The American became something of a Wimbledon cult hero when beating France’s Nicolas Mahut 70-68 in the fifth set in 2010 — a record-breaking duel lasting 11 hours five minutes and spanning three days and in which the last set alone (eight hours 11 minutes) would have broken the previous longestmatch record.

After his 2010 exploits Isner, 33, was involved in the secondlongest Wimbledon match in the 2018 semifinals when he went down 26-24 in the fifth set to SA’s Kevin Anderson — a battle of six hours and 36 minutes.

That led to further calls to bring in sudden-death tiebreaks and Wimbledon’s organisers announced last week that 2019’s Championships would use them after 24 games in deciding sets.

“I have said all along 12-all is good,” Isner told BBC Radio 5 on Sunday. “That is sensible — you’re getting people who like the advantage and people who like tie-breaks.

“It is bucking tradition but a lot of people believe that is not a bad thing.”

The world No 10 even joked that the new ruling should be named after him.

“The next match that gets to that, they should just say we will now play the Isner Rule,” he said. “I don’t think they are going to do that, but I think I’ve been a big driving force for it.”

Wimbledon has followed the US Open which has employed tiebreaks at 6-6 in deciding sets, but by allowing a set to reach 12-12 organisers say that they are still maintaining tradition and allowing dramatic deciding sets to evolve.

The Australian and French Opens do not have final set breakers.