John Isner of the U.S. celebrates defeating France's Nicolas Mahut in their resumed match at the 2010 Wimbledon tennis championships in London, June 24, 2010.
Photograph by: Suzanne Plunkett, Reuters
LONDON — There was roughly a 1-in-141 chance of it happening. The law of the tennis draw made it so.
John Isner of the United States and Nicolas Mahut of France, who in the first round a year ago collaborated on the longest match in tennis history, will meet again in the first round of the Wimbledon men’s singles draw.
“It’s going to be pretty nuts,” Isner told reporters Friday. “I couldn’t believe it. I joked with him earlier in the week, last week, and said, ‘Watch us play each other.’ And he said, ‘No, there’s no way. That’s not even funny.’ ”
The matchup between the two unseeded players, whose names adorn a new plaque on the outside wall of Court 18 — the site of a marathon that lasted more than three days and ended 70-68 in the fifth set — overshadowed the results of the men’s and singles draws made at the All-England Club on Friday.
Otherwise, full attention would have been focused on whether longtime Wimbledon rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer ended up in the same half of the men’s draw, and on where the returning Venus and Serena Williams would be placed to wreak havoc in the women’s draw.
As it turned out, the men’s potential final four fell just as it did at the French Open two weeks ago: No. 2 Federer and No. 3 Novak Djokovic in one half; top seed Nadal and No. 4 Andy Murray in the other half.
Nadal’s road is hardly easy.
He could meet Canadian Milos Raonic in the third round and Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina in the round of 16.
In the first round of his very first Wimbledon as a professional, Raonic drew the dramatic Italian Fabio Fognini, who was forced to withdraw from his scheduled French Open quarter-final with Djokovic because of a thigh injury.
The other Canadian straight into the main draw, Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino, will play unseeded Austrian Patricia Mayr Achleitner in the first round.
As for the Williams sisters, they ended up in opposite halves of the women’s draw. As they try to make it into the second week, the building storyline will be whether — after a year of total inactivity for Serena and near-inactivity for Venus — they could somehow end up facing each other in yet another Wimbledon championship final.
Serena, seeded No. 7, could face 2007 finalist Marion Bartoli (No. 9) in the fourth round, and French Open champion Li Na (the No. 3 seed) in the quarter-finals.
She will play Aravane Rezai of France in the first round.
Venus, seeded No. 23, plays big-serving Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan in the first round. She could see former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic (seeded No. 15) in the third round and 2010 finalist Vera Zvonareva in the fourth round.
Djokovic has a tough customer in the first round in talented Frenchman Jeremy Chardy, while Federer drew Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan and could face another of the dangerous lower seeds, No. 28 David Nalbandian of Argentina, in the third round.
Andy Murray, Britain’s best hope at a major, was drawn in the same quarter as No. 8 seed Andy Roddick, a finalist here in 2009.
Isner and Mahut, two players from different countries who had little in common before last year’s epic, have bonded in the year since they made history.
Mahut even collaborated on a book released in France during the French Open entitled “Le match de ma vie” (The match of my life).
The two text regularly, their families have met each other, and they even had scheduled a practice together Saturday. They cancelled it.
Whether Tuesday’s rematch will be in a bigger venue commensurate with what is sure to be major interest, or will return to the scene of the crime — so to speak — on Court 18, is up to the schedulers at the All-England Club.
Mahut had a much tougher go of things in the aftermath of that match, saying later that he fell into a depression that lasted about three months. He also has some serious issues with tendinitis in his knees at the moment.
So a repeat of last year’s never-ending drama would have even longer odds than the fluke of the two drawing each other again in the first place.
“We might do dinner (afterward),” Isner said. “We’re really good friends now, but obviously we both want to win. But we’re going to enjoy it and laugh at it at the same time.”
Montreal Gazette
smylesmontreal@gazette.com
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