Monday, July 2, 2007

Brazilian pair record longest final set

LONDON (Reuters) - Brazil's Marcelo Melo and Andre Sa entered the Wimbledon record books on Wednesday when they won the longest final set in championship history.

The Brazilian pair upset sixth seeds Paul Hanley of Australia and Kevin Ullyett of Zimbabwe, winning 5-7 7-6 4-6 7-6 28-26 in a rain-interrupted encounter that spanned an unprecedented four days of play.

Although an opening doubles set in the 1968 championships took 62 games to complete, the 54 played on Court 16 is the most for a deciding set.

The total of 102 games played was also the most in a single match since tiebreaks were introduced in 1973.

The match began on Saturday. It ended after five hours and 58 minutes play and was 11 minutes shy of the longest match in Wimbledon history when Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor beat Simon Aspelin and Todd Perry in the last year's doubles quarter-final.

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