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Roger Federer

Turns Out John Isner Is In Fact The Most Influential Tennis Player In Wimbledon During This Era Instead Of Eight-Time Champ Roger Federer

Pffft, winning eight Wimbledon crowns and being arguably the GOAT tennis player is nothing.

Of all the many, many accomplishments that Roger Federer has achieved in tennis – most weeks as world number 1, most singles grand slams won, keeping his hair in perfect nick at all times even during a match – most will agree that his finest achievement would be winning eight Wimbledon trophies over the course of his illustrious career.

With those eight crowns officially giving Federer the title of “most winningest male player at Wimbledon”, you’d think that the Uniqlo-wearing champ is a shoo-in as the most influential player in Wimbledon’s history over the last 10 years or so, which is no small feat considering it is the oldest and most prestigious tournament in tennis history.

But as it turns out, the most influential player of this era to have played on those hallowed grass courts isn’t Federer. No, that title goes to the 208cm tall American serving machine, John Isner.

Yep, this bloke.

Before you all bring out the tennis racquets against me for making such a claim, please allow me to explain.

Federer may have the most Wimbledon crowns ever but he’ll never accomplish the one thing Isner has done at the tournament: playing three of the longest matches ever in Wimbledon history, two of which are ranked as the longest in all of tennis.

There was Isner’s remarkable match against Frenchman Nicolas Mahut back in the 2010 tournament, which went for three days and ended on a never-to-be-equaled score of 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68. Hey, at least he won in the end. Can’t imagine how Mahut felt after losing a match that went on for 11 hours.

Isner then played another epic against Jo-Wilfred Tsonga in the 2016 tournament, which went for 4 hours and 24 minutes and ended on a 6-7, 3-6, 7-6, 6-2, 19-17 scoreline loss for the American.

Most recently, there was his 2018 semi-final match against Kevin Anderson, which had a slightly-less-crazy score of 7-6, 6-7, 6-7, 6-4, 26-24, is Wimbledon’s second longest match, and “only” lasted 6 hours and 43 minutes.

The common theme in all of those aforementioned matches is that they all went super-long and had crazy fifth set scorelines, which wrecks havoc with Wimbledon’s scheduling due to the tournament’s mandated 11pm curfew and several dozens of other players needing to get their matches over and done with on time.

Isner’s epic match against Anderson this year proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back because Wimbledon officials have now officially changed the rules in an attempt to shorten matches.

Whereas matches could go on indefinitely previously (as evidenced by Isner vs Mahut), the new rule stipulates that in the event a match reaches 12-12 in the fifth set, a tiebreak will be played thus ensuring a winner and people getting home on time.

Isner may not ever win a Wimbledon crown, but playing enough epic matches to influence the tournament officials – historically known to be sticklers in adhering to tradition – to change the rules is certainly no small feat.

Heck, Federer has won Wimbledon eight times and still hasn’t managed to force a rule change at tennis’ most prestigious tournament.

So good onya, Isner. That Wimbledon trophy may be a little too far from your grasp but being the tournament’s most influential player during this era of tennis is an achievement in of itself. Plus, it means that it is virtually impossible for another pair to break Isner’s three-day match record so he’ll forever have that in the bag as well.

As for Federer, well, you’ll just have to make do with being arguably tennis’  Greatest Of All Time (the GOAT if you will), which is still something to be proud of I guess.