It was a major tennis final for the record books. Novak Djokovich bested Spain’s Rafael Nadal in the longest tennis final in history. The match lasted 5 hours and 53 minutes and smashed the record set in the 1988 U.S. Open final when Matts Wilander defeated Ivan Lendl that was an hour less than today Australian Open.
Often when I wake up in the middle night it is very tough for me to go back to sleep. A cool drink of water is often my best sleep medicine, but at 4:30 my nightly glass of water has turned luke warm. Because I am too lazy to get out of bed I am forced to resort to reading to fall back to sleep.
As I logged on to twitter at 4:30 a.m. the Djokovich match was just getting underway. I woke up at 8:30 a.m., drank a cup of coffee, read the paper, then headed towards the shower. I turned on the television to ESPN 2 and was floored to see the match still going on. It was in the 5th set and Djokovich was serving for the match up 6-5 in the 5th set. What an epic Australian Open final, and both Djokovich and Nadal exhibited a trememdous amount of class in addressing the audience afterwards.
This type of match is good for the sport. For the first time since the late 1990s, tennis has three heavy hitters in Djokovich, Nadal, and Roger Federer. With Federer aging and without a major tennis title in two years he could be slipping away.
