When I witnessed the most exciting conclusion to a soccer match in USA soccer history, I thought for sure that it would be the number one story of the week in sports, if not the month in sports, if not the year in sports. After 90 minutes of frustration and agony, finally, in stoppage time, in the 91st minute, Landon Donovan, the greatest US soccer player of all time, was able to score a goal and give the Americans the 1-0 victory they needed to advance out of their group and into the round of 16, in the World Cup.
But as it turns out, the thrilling American soccer game wasn't even the best sports story of the day.
The best sports story of the day, week, month, year, also involved an American and it also took place on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not in South Africa, but in England, at the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Concluded today, after 11 hours and five minutes, which spanned over the course of three remarkable days, the American John Isner defeated the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut in the most amazing tennis match ever played. Shattering every record possible in one match, Isner and Mahut played an epic first round match that no words can correctly describe and no superlatives would be fitting.
Here's the final score line: Isner def. Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 6-7, 70-68.
The final set was 70-68!
Due to the Wimbledon rules that a fifth set must be won by two games, Isner and Mahut just kept on going, no one breaking serve for 69 games each, and showing fortitude unmatched by anyone in the history of sports. Marathon runners don't have anything on what Isner and Mahut just accomplished. In 100 years people will look back on this match as one of the greatest sporting events of all time.
While Isner finally won out, Mahut, obviously distraught, showed an amazing amount of class in a losing effort. Both players are now immediate household names and will be linked together forever in tennis lure no matter what they both go on to accomplish. Their embrace at the end of the match showed us exactly what sports are all about.
In the past couple of days, we have witnessed American sports victories the likes of which have never been done before, and both of them weren't even in America. The NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL could never produce the sort of raw emotion and victories of the human spirit that we just saw in Wimbledon and the World Cup.
So what did we learn from the greatest tennis match of all time, and the greatest US soccer victory ever? Sports are the greatest entertainment in the world because they can't be scripted and sports are better on an international stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment