John Isner won the longest singles match in Grand Slam history, defeating Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010.
The first-round match lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes, spread across three days from June 22 to June 24. Isner won 6–4, 3–6, 6–7, 7–6, 70–68. The deciding set alone lasted more than eight hours and contained 138 games.
Both players relied heavily on powerful serves, making breaks extremely rare. Isner hit 113 aces, while Mahut struck 103, setting a combined record that remains one of the match’s remarkable statistics. Wimbledon’s traditional final-set rules allowed play to continue without a tiebreak at 6–6.
A common mix-up is confusing the winner with the player on the losing side: Mahut was not the winner, but his endurance made him equally central to the record. Wimbledon later introduced a final-set tiebreak at 12–12, making another match of this exact type far less likely.