Why Are Tennis Matches So Long? (The Real Reason)

When it comes to tennis, the match times can change unusually much whereas, in other sports, the time is set from the beginning.

This raises the question, why are tennis matches so long?

Tennis matches are long because the sport doesn’t have a pre-set time limit. A match of tennis will only end when a player has won enough sets to determine the winner. Often, a game of tennis is best of 3 or 5 sets. Tennis matches can be so long because each match is different and can have long points.

That being said, this makes the time of tennis matches highly unpredictable. However, tennis matches often end in a reasonable time. In fact, the average time of a best of 3 is 1 hour and 30 minutes whereas the best of 5 is 2 hours and 45 minutes.

For all tennis players and fans, 1 hour and 30 minutes is a reasonable amount to invest in watching tennis, but 2 hours and 45 minutes is getting quite long. These are just the averages, and the matches can stretch far beyond these times.

Now, let’s take a look at how long can a tennis match really last.

How long can a tennis match last?

Technically, a tennis match can last forever if the set doesn’t have a tie break. A tennis match won’t last forever in the real world, and the longest professional match ever recorded is 11 hours and 5 minutes.

For many people, that would feel like forever, especially for the players. This unbelievably long tennis match was played in 2010 Wimbledon between John Isner and Nicholas Mahut. The next longest game is 7 hours and 1 minute.

10 longest professional tennis matches

Time	Match Winner	Match Loser
11:05	John Isner	Nicolas Mahut
07:01	Tomáš Berdych & Lukáš Rosol	Stanislas Wawrinka & Marco Chiudinelli
06:43	Leonardo Mayer	João Souza
06:36	Kevin Anderson	John Isner
06:33	Fabrice Santoro	Arnaud Clément
06:31	Vicki Nelson	Jean Hepner
06:22	John McEnroe	Mats Wilander
06:21	Boris Becker	John McEnroe
06:20	Lucas Arnold Ker & David Nalbandian	Yevgeny Kafelnikov & Marat Safin
06:15	José Luis Clerc	John McEnroe

What is the shortest match in tennis history?

The shortest tennis match of all time was played in Surrey Open Hard Court Championships 1946. Jack Harper defeated J.Sandiford in only 18 minutes that holds the record for the shortest tennis match in history.

Below you can see the 8 shortest tennis matches in history.

8 shortest professional tennis matches

Time	Match Winner	Match Loser
18 minutes	Jack Harper	J. Sandiford
24 minutes	Margaret Court	Darlene Hard
24 minutes	Helen Wills	Joan Fry
25 minutes	Francisco Clavet	Jiang Chan
28 minutes	Jarkko Nieminen	Bernard Tomic
34 minutes	Steffi Graf	Natasha Zvereva
36 minutes	William Renshaw	John Hartley
40 minutes	Fred Perry	Gottfried von Cramm

Can a tennis match end in a draw?

There are no such things as draw matches in tennis. If a match is about to end in a ”draw”, then a tiebreak is used, which means that only one game is played that determines the winner.

Conclusion

It really shares opinions whether it is great or not that the match times of tennis are so unpredictable. Personally, I like it because it gives an element of mystery to the game, unlike when you know exactly when a match would end.

I hope that this article was helpful to you and you now know that tennis matches are so long because a required amount of sets needs to be won until the match finishes and tennis doesn’t have a pre-set time limit.