The heat death of tennis.
There is no comedy in eternity.
The prospect of unending anything is existentially terrifying. The depths of space, an endless expanse of ocean, the cold, dark void—these things are not to be enjoyed, not to be gawked at, not to be laughed at. They are frightening beyond measure.
You know that John Isner has been here before. You don't remember caring, but you remember seeing that picture of Isner and Nicolas Mahut wearily standing by a scoreboard that read "70-68" in the fifth set column. That match was irrelevant: Isner was barely in the top twenty and Mahut was just a replaceable doubles specialist. It was an oddity, but a (mostly) harmless one.
The stakes of his match against Kevin Anderson were so much higher. John Isner, against all common sense and common decency, stepped onto the court Thursday with a chance not only to make his first ever slam final, but to potentially put himself in a class he's never before sniffed. With one Masters title on the books and a spot in the year-end Tour Finals all but guaranteed, a Wimbledon title could have sent Isner rocketing up the charts. Cracking the top five was a certainty. A home-court hard court swing leading up to a home-court slam, leading up to free points in the Tour Finals, leading up to another hard court slam and Masters in which he was defending zero points meant that when it came time for John Isner to defend his Miami title, he could very likely have been number two in the world. If not for Rafa's obscene clay-court dominance, world number one would have been not terribly out of grasp.
Across from John Isner stood all 6-8 of Kevin Anderson. Anderson should not be where he is. Great players never come from the college ranks and Anderson was a Challenger grinder not terribly long ago. But a whole lot of hard work turned Anderson into a legitimate player. While Anderson still has virtually no ATP titles, he entered the Wimbledon semifinals looking to book his place in a second slam final in four tries. He is a better player than John Isner. His serve is nearly as unreturnable and he can hit a ground stroke from both sides of the court. That makes him an infinitely more well-rounded player.
Kevin Anderson is also, in stark contrast to his lanky stature, a mental midget. Much of his career turnaround is credited towards his new "positive attitude" that, in practice, means yelling "come on!" after almost every point. Normally, it's ok, and even admirable. But when you're still yelling to pump yourself up in the process of getting his teeth kicked in by Rafael Nadal in the US Open finals, that "new attitude" only serves to highlight how out of your depth you are. Kevin Anderson is, even while winning more than nearly anyone else on tour, always out of his depth.It was inevitable that this match would go as it did. The first three sets ending in tiebreakers should have clued us in to what was coming. By now, surely, you know the story. A cavalcade of aces and holds, a waterfall of unwatchable points, and an unending march to either the end of the match or the end of the earth.
Kevin Anderson would eventually win 7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-4, 26-24 in a match that was profoundly more cursed than that hellacious scoreline would have you believe. Shortly after staggering off the court victorious, Kevin Anderson called for the introduction of a fifth-set tiebreak.
I hope this is a bit of sign for Grand Slams to change this format," Anderson said. "At the end, you don't even feel that great out there."
The general takeaway from the public was agreement with Anderson. After all, we all just watched Isner and Anderson dig their trenches in the London turf and hurtle artillery shells at each other until someone's will broke. And, in true 2018 hellscape form, the solution presented, a deciding tiebreak to be played at 12-12, is no solution at all. Rather, it only exacerbates that which it hopes to eliminate.
Kevin Anderson and John Isner are two sides of the same coin. Anderson's movement and steady forehand can hide it, but at their core, Isner and Anderson are servebots. They live to hold serve six times and try and snatch the set in a tiebreaker. 46 weeks out of the year, that strategy does not result in anything unusual. On every tour stop but Wimbledon, Roland Garros, and Melbourne, deciding set tiebreakers are played. These can be exhilarating to be sure, Roger Federer and Nick Kyrgios played a sparkling one in Miami last year. But such a rule clearly favors the servers. You don't need to ever break someone's serve if you can just take two of three tiebreakers. Tiebreakers are the tennis equivalent of the old NASL penalty shootouts. They're tennis adjacent, but they aren't the real thing.
The servebots on tour are the worst ones to watch. They play painful, artless matches that drone on. No one's favorite player is unironically Ivo Karlovic because the style runs perpendicular to a sport that thrives on artistry. The poor guy can’t even get anyone to practice with him during tournaments. Servebots are finger paintings in the Louvre next to the shotmakers on tour.
The three slams in which the deciding set tiebreaker doesn't exist provide the best penalty for a style of play that lacks creativity and inflicts psychological torture on the viewer: unyielding physical punishment. Want to fail to break someone's serve 25 times in a row? Enjoy feeling like death. There is no easy out at this tournament. You will remain on the court until you complete the job thoroughly. No one is coming to help you. Kevin Anderson may have won the match, but he very clearly lost the war. Of course he wants there to be a fifth set tiebreaker. He was made to suffer because his style of play is fundamentally incomplete.
Kevin Anderson and John Isner paid for their sins against sport by playing a tennis match which, by the end, neither player wanted to be a part of. They were to stand across from each other, negating their own success with their own immense ineptitude, cracking serves past sprawling limbs over and over until the darkness would overcome them both.
7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-4, 26-24.7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-4, 26-24
7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-4, 26-247-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-4, 26-24
