5 Longest men’s tiebreakers in tennis history
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Benjamin Balleret, Bjorn Borg, Guillermo Olaso
Tiebreakers are used in tennis to get the result in the match to eventually separate the two players. In men’s tennis, apart from Grand Slam events, all matches are played in the best-of-3 format while the Grand Slams are played in the best-of-5 format.
Over the years there have been many modifications made to the tiebreaker rule, the basic principle remains the same. In case the set is tied at 5-5, if either of the players is able to win the next two matches and make it 7-5, they are declared as the winner for the set. If the score gets tied at 6-6, the next game is played in the tie-breaker format and as per the tournament, the rule changes on deciding the winner.
Two of the longest men’s singles tiebreakers have come not in the main-draw of the ATP Tour but in the Future’s tournament but the record has been verified by both the ATP and ITF. In the main-draw of the ATP tour or the Grand Slam level, the longest tiebreaker is at 20–18, which has occurred several times on the ATP Tour.
No. 5: Bjorn Borg vs Premjit Lall (20-18)
The first instance of a tiebreaker reaching the 20 games mark, in the first round of the 1973 Wimbledon, Bjorn Borg won a marathon match against Premjit Lall. Despite it being a straight-set victory, Premjit made life difficult for Borg who responded well to the challenge to win the match 6-3, 6-4, 9-8(20-18).
Borg eventually lost in the quarter-finals that year and had to wait till 1976 for his first Wimbledon title and then won the next 5 in a row and was defeated in the finals of the 1981 Wimbledon finals ending his 41 match winning streak at the All-England Club.
No. 4: Gary Lugassy vs Igor Zelenay/ Guillermo Olaso vs Evgeny Kalovskiy (22-20)
- In the first round of the 2008 BH Telecom Indoors, an ATP-Challenger tournament held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, former French player Gary Lugassy took on Slovakia’s doubles specialist Igor Zelenay and set the record of then the second-longest tie-breaker clash winning the match 6-2, 7-6(22-20).
- The record was matched in 2018 at the RBC Tennis Championships of Dallas where Spain’s Guillermo Olaso won the first round tiebreaker against Russia’s Evgeny Kalovskiy and matched the record of 22-20 earlier set by Lugassy and Zelenay.
No. 3: Aki Rahunen vs Peter Nyborg (24-22)
In the first round qualifications of the 1992 Copenhagen Open, former Finland player Aki Rahunen was up against Sweden’s Peter Nyborg and won a first-set tiebreaker and eventually won the match with a score of 7–6(24-22), 2–6, 6–3.
No. 2: Evgeny Tyurnev vs Danilo Petrovic (25-23)
The second-longest official tiebreak was played between Russia’s Evgeny Tyurnev and Serbia’s Danilo Petrovic on 23 January 2016 at the $25,000 Men’s Futures tournament in Kazakhstan F1, at Aktobe. Tyurnev defeated Petrovic 7–6(25–23), 6–3 in the finals to create the record.
No. 1: Benjamin Balleret vs Guillaume Couillard (36-34)
At the $10,000 Men’s Futures tournament qualifications in Florida, Monaco’s Benjamin Balleret played a marathon match against Monegasque’s Guillaume Couillard. Despite the match did not have any lines or was chaired by the umpire, both the ITF and ATP confirmed the score after the duo played a 70-point tiebreaker. Benjamin eventually won the match 7-6(36-34), 6-1 against his fellow Davis Cup teammate.
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Sarthak Shitole
(3462 Articles Published)