OK, that wasn’t the incredible 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(7), 7-6(3), 70-68.. talking about the 2010 Wimbledon saga played by Isner and Mahut (of course!)… but still winning 25-23 in the third set is quite freakish as well.
This time the heroes are Tsonga and Raonic. The duo after splitting the first 2 sets with same result (6-3) went for the kill in the decider. The remarkable stat is that in 48 games they had to face only 4 break point each, and losing 1 of them was one too many for Milos.
This match market some records such as the longest set in Olympics tennis history as the last one was played in Seoul 88 by Carling Basset-Seguso and Jill Hetherington beating Mercedes Paz and Gabriela Sabatini 7-6, 5-7, 20-18 and it was also the one with the most ames played (66) in the singles history (men and ladies).
At the end of it (3h and 57minutes) there was a warm handshake between Jo and Milos. “At the end, I was just very happy for my country,” said Tsonga. “I did it for them, and that’s it.”
“I think it is something good,” added Tsonga. “To have some good matches like this at the Olympics. It’s good for tennis, it’s good for sports and I’m just really happy with the way I played today.”
“I don’t think I can say too much about it now,” said Raonic “Maybe next time, I will sort of ask my opponent, ‘Do you want to play a long match and let’s take it seriously from 26-26?’”
Tsonga will play Feliciano Lopez in the next round. The Spaniard had a very good win against Monaco (6-4 6-4)
Head to Head 3-0 for Jo (1-0 on the grass), but he should be pretty tired this time.
