This article details longest tennis match records by duration or number of games.
The 1970–1973 introduction of the
tiebreak
In games and sports, a tiebreaker or tiebreak is used to determine a winner from among players or teams that are tied at the end of a contest, or a set of contests.
General operation
In matches
In some situations, the tiebreaker may consi ...
reduced the opportunity for such records to be broken. However, among the
four majors, the
US Open,
Australian Open and
Wimbledon (since 2019) use the tiebreak in the final set, while the
French Open, through 2021, was the only major to use the
advantage set rules in the final set, which allows for an indefinite number of games until one player is ahead by two. A 2022 rule change now requires every Grand Slam tournament, even the
Olympics, to use the tiebreak in the final set.
All competitions
Overall
Longest matches by duration
Only two professional competitive matches have lasted longer than seven
hours and 14 matches have lasted longer than six hours.
Longest matches by number of games
Men's singles
The
Isner–Mahut match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships
The Isner–Mahut match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships is the longest tennis match in history. It was a first-round Men's singles match, in which the American 23rd seed John Isner played against French qualifier Nicolas Mahut. The match ...
holds the record for the longest tennis match both in time and games played. It lasted for 11 hours and 5 minutes.
Women's singles
The longest women's match (by time) took place at
a tournament in Richmond, Virginia, in 1984, when
Vicki Nelson took 6 hours, 31 minutes to defeat
Jean Hepner 6–4, 7–6
(13–11). The match featured a 29-minute, 643-shot rally, the longest in professional tennis history, though no video exists of this point.
Unlike men's singles matches, where Grand Slam events are still played over the best of five sets, all women's matches are now played as the best of three sets. This means that there is a far greater likelihood of a match in any tournament being long enough to be included in this table. All matches since January 1, 2019 have been checked, but there are likely to be many more from earlier years which have not yet been recognised, especially as qualifying matches in ITF tournaments before that date would normally have been played over the best of three tie-break sets.
Where different sources give durations for a particular match, the shortest elapsed time will be the one noted below.
Note 1: The fourth-longest match listed above was recorded in the ITF live scoring data as taking 5 hours and 4 minutes.
SofaScore recorded 4 hours and 54 minutes and TNNS recorded 4 hours and 55 minutes. The shortest of these has been included in this table.
Note 2: The sixth-longest match listed above was recorded in the ITF live scoring data as taking 4 hours and 50 minutes.
SofaScore recorded 4 hours and 46 minutes and TNNS recorded 4 hours and 47 minutes. The shortest of these has been included in this table.
Note 3: The eighth-longest match listed above was recorded in the ITF live scoring data as taking 4 hours and 53 minutes.
The shorter time, recorded by both SofaScore and TNNS, has been included in this table.
The longest match consisting of two standard sets and a match tie-break was played in the second qualifying round of a $25,000 ITF tournament in
Koksijde
Koksijde (; french: Coxyde ; vls, Koksyde) is a town and a municipality in Belgium. It is located on the North Sea coast in the southwest of the Flemish province of West Flanders.
The municipality comprises apart from Koksijde, the villages of ...
, Belgium, on August 9, 2021.
Merel Hoedt defeated
Berta Bonardi 7–5, 6–7
(4–7),
0–4 in three hours and 37 minutes.
Doubles
;Longest doubles matches by time
;Longest doubles matches by number of games
Australian Open
Men's singles
Men's doubles
Women's singles
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
French Open
Men's singles
Men's doubles
Women's singles
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
Wimbledon
Men's singles
The 2019 Wimbledon
Men's final between
Roger Federer
Roger Federer (; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, including a record 237 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-e ...
and
Novak Djokovic
Novak Djokovic ( sr-Cyrl, Новак Ђоковић, translit=Novak Đoković, ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked world No. 1 for a record total 373 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 ...
lasted 4 hours 57 minutes and is the third longest singles final by time played.
Men's doubles
Women's singles
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
US Open
Men's singles
Men's doubles
Women's singles
Best-of-five-sets system:
Best-of-three-sets system:
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
Summer Olympics
* ''Note'': The
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
does not recognise records in tennis. Therefore, all the records listed below are unofficial.
Overall
Men's singles
;
Best-of-three-sets system:
;
Best-of-five-sets system:
Men's doubles
Women's singles
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
Davis Cup and Fed Cup
Davis Cup
Fed Cup
Tour Finals
ATP Tour Finals
Best-of-five-sets system:
Best-of-three-sets system:
WTA Tour Finals
Best-of-five-sets system:
Best-of-three-sets system:
See also
*
Tennis statistics
*
Shortest tennis match records
*
Longest tiebreaker in tennis Several tiebreaks have been attributed as the longest tiebreak in tennis.
Match tie-breaks (also referred to as supertiebreakers or champions tie-breaks), where a single game is used to decide a match when the score is one set all, have been in ge ...
References
External links
BBC – Extreme tennis: the demands of a 10-hour game
{{DEFAULTSORT:Longest Tennis Match Records
Tennis records and statistics