Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares (BRA)
Marathon matches
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Milos Raonic entered the Olympic tennis annals on Tuesday for their marathon second round clash, but the records they broke were almost eclipsed within 24 hours by a doubles match on No. 16 Court…. but not quite!
After bad light stopped play on Tuesday night, Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares of Brazil resumed their clash against Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic on Wednesday with the score locked at 1-6 6-4 18-18.
The deciding set continued to go with serve until 22-22, edging closer and closer to the longest set record, 25-23, that Tsonga and Raonic posted on Tuesday. Then it happened…. the Brazilians broke the Czechs!
After 4 hours 21 minutes on court, which is the longest known best-of-three-sets Olympic tennis match, Melo and Soares held serve to win 1-6 6-4 24-22.
The final set fell just short of being the longest ever at the Olympics, 46 games compared to yesterday’s 48 games, and the match also missed out as well, 63 games compared to yesterday’s 66 games.
Still, Melo and Soares have another chance to break the record as they advance to the quarterfinals to meet French duo Michael Llodra and, that’s right, marathon man Tsonga!
Outdoors, indoors
Kei Nishikori and David Ferrer got to play on Centre Court today, but only for five points!
The two players started their third round match on No. 14 Court this evening, but when bad light stopped play with the score at 6-0 3-6 5-4 in favour of Nishikori, the decision was taken to move under the Centre Court roof rather than come back tomorrow.
The players made their way into the main arena, warmed up, and then Ferrer promptly dropped his serve…. oh dear!
Nishikori wasn't complaining - he goes on to play Juan Martin del Potro in the quarterfinals.
Famous faces
Caroline Wozniacki benefitted from the support of the Danish handball team today, and it clearly helped as she produced her best performance of the tournament to beat Daniela Hantuchova in straight sets on Centre Court.
Novak Djokovic was also supported by an Olympic teammate, with Serbian table tennis player Marko Jetkovic making the trip to Wimbledon to give his compatriot a shout.
Giving the day a Royal touch was Princess Michael of Kent, while political followers would have recognised Ivan Gasparovic, the Slovakian President, and Igor Luksic, the Prime Minister of Montenegro.