Skip to content

Anderson, Isner plead for rule change after 50-game 5th set in Wimbledon semis

OLI SCARFF / AFP / Getty

The US Open is the only Grand Slam at which a deciding set can be determined by a tiebreaker, and Kevin Anderson, for one, would like to see the other three majors follow suit.

After slogging through a ridiculous six-and-a-half-hour Wimbledon semifinal match in which he beat John Isner 26-24 in the fifth set, the eighth-ranked South African suggested a rule change was in order.

"I hope this is a sign for slams to change this format out of five sets," Anderson said in his postmatch interview. "I really hope we can look at it and address this because at the end you don't even feel that good out there."

Prior to playing that grueling semifinal, Anderson, who stands 6-foot-8, had played a 24-game fifth set in a four-plus-hour quarterfinal against Roger Federer.

Isner, meanwhile, knows as well as anyone how ridiculous things can get when there's no final-set tiebreaker, having played to 70-68 in the fifth against Nicolas Mahut in 2010, a set that took over eight hours in a match that lasted 11 hours total and was played across three days.

In his post-match presser, Isner suggested that playing a tiebreak at 12-12 in a deciding set would be a reasonable solution.

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox