Feats of tennis endurance

Grand Slam Sunday had ticked into miraculous Monday and the once-genteel summer sport of tennis morphed into unbridled gladiatorial warfare.

At 1:37 am, following 353 gruelling, sweat-soaked minutes of relentless, blow-trading combat, Novak Djokovic clobbered his 57th winner past the brave but beaten blade of equally valiant Rafael Nadal to claim an unforgettable victory in the Australian Open 2012 final.

Djokovic collapsed onto his back, before tearing off his shirt, flexing his ripped torso and unleashing a primal roar.

So concluded the longest Grand Slam final in the Open era, the longest-ever Australian Open clash and, quite possibly, the most punishing, high-quality endurance contest ever played on any tennis court, pitting unquenchable spirit against unbreakable soldier.

“You are in pain, you suffer, you know that you’re trying to activate your legs, you’re trying to push yourself another point, just one more point, one more game,” Djokovic said.

“You’re going through so much suffering; your toes are bleeding. “Everything is just outrageous, but you’re still enjoying that pain.

“It was obvious on the court for everybody who has watched the match that both of us, physically, we took the last drop of energy that we had from our bodies.”

While attributes such as agility, quickness, balance and strength are synonymous with tennis, endurance is just as vital, particular in those gruelling marathons played in mid- summer heat.

Properly-built endurance allows players to resist muscle fatigue during the long rallies like the ones Djokovic and Nadal routinely engage in, while also ensuring quicker recovery between points.

The epic between the two never-say-die counterpunchers featured one pulsating baseline exchange after another. And another. And another. For virtually six hours.

The zenith was one hypnotic 32-stroke rally that Nadal won on a Djokovic backhand error that drew a standing ovation from the Melbourne faithful.

Flinging his racquet, the Serb fell flat to the floor, his face painfully grimacing and his arms involuntarily extended upright, while Nadal doubled over, hands gripping his knees.

“Physically, (it) was the toughest match I ever played,” Nadal said afterwards.

The long-winded post-match formalities created an even more tortuous ‘sixth set’ which saw both men cramping, staring glassily and on the verge of collapse before, mercifully, two chairs and bottled waters were retrieved for the exhausted combatants.

Mind-bogglingly, Djokovic’s triumph came less than 48 hours after he had invested almost five hours in taming Andy Murray in a Friday night semifinal slug-a-thon.

So drained was the Serb after that match, he lay exhausted on the court, barely able to swat away the night moths fluttering around his face.

Fast forward 12 months, Djokovic was crowned Australian Open champion again, but was almost undone in the fourth round, narrowly surviving a mountainous 302-minute bruiser against Stan Wawrinka, saluting 12-10 in the fifth.

When the pair again locked horns in the Aussie Open quarters earlier this year, the Swiss edged the reigning champ 9-7 in a fifth-set thriller after an even four hours en route to a maiden Grand Slam triumph, Wawrinka passing the physical and mental endurance test.

Nadal himself is no stranger to successfully hauling himself off the canvas.

He did so memorably in 2009, reducing arch rival Federer – whose much underrated endurance has seen him never, ever default through mid-match injury in more than 1200 ATP matches – to tears after downing the Swiss legend in a five-set final.

Just 37 hours before confronting Federer, Nadal survived a five hour, 14 minute semifinal against fellow Spanish southpaw Fernando Verdasco on a sapping, humid Friday night.

Three of the five sets were decided by tiebreaks, while Nadal’s famed defence was tested to the limit as Verdasco crunched 95 winners.

Verdasco, who idolised Andre Agassi as a kid, followed his hero by joining forces with Gil Reyes, Agassi’s close friend and long-time strength and conditioning trainer.

“This generation has raised the bar, and the court coverage is unreal,” Reyes said at the time.

“You’re sprinting, slamming on the brakes, sprinting back, starting and stopping violently.

“Weak legs command and strong legs obey.”

Australian warhorse Lleyton Hewitt has played in more Grand Slam five-setters (42) than anyone in tennis history, his never-say- die mentality and unflagging spirit the stuff of folklore.

In 2008, Hewitt famously overcame popular Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis in a third- round Australian Open five-setter that finished at 4:33 am.

Three years earlier during his march to the 2005 final, Hewitt took five sets to stave off a relatively unknown teenager named Nadal in the fourth round before repeatedly staring defeat square in the face in a backbreaking, spiteful five-setter against Argentine foe David Nalbandian.

Hewitt cruised through the first two sets but was walloped in the next two before, while practically limping between points with a bad hip, crawling over the line 10-8 in a fifth-set nail-biter.

The pair locked swords again in Melbourne in 2011 and duelled for four hours, 48 minutes – the longest match of Hewitt’s distinguished career – with Nalbandian turning the tables, 9-7 in the fifth.

While Hewitt and Nalbandian have always been renowned endurance animals, American former world No.1 Andy Roddick had to alter a few habits early in his career to transform stamina from a personal soft point into a strength.

As a 20-year-old at the end of 2002 and having been stultified by various injuries and stomach viruses, Roddick undertook a rigorous off-season training program.

He replaced his foosball machines and pool table with exercise equipment and a massage bench to accommodate his new regimen, which undoubtedly helped him pull off a miraculous, marathon win against tall Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui in the 2003 quarterfinals at Melbourne.

The pulsating final set, which went two hours, 23 minutes was finally won by Roddick, 21-19.

“My levels of respect for him just grew and grew throughout the match and I’m pretty sure it’s vice-versa,” Roddick said afterwards.

While most feats of stamina lend themselves to five-set duels confined to the men’s draw, there have been some amazing endurance exploits on the women’s side.

The longest professional singles match played by any man or woman before 2004 was Vicki Nelson’s 6-4 7-6 win over fellow unsung American Jean Hepner at a Virginia Slims tournament in 1984.

The second-set tiebreak featured one record-cracking, mind-numbing 29-minute, 643- shot rally which Nelson won before collapsing with cramps in her legs and cruelly being issued with a time violation by the unsympathetic chair umpire.

Two points later, Nelson closed the six hours, 31 minute match, which likely would have extended into a blood-curdling deciding set had Hepner won that tortuous rally.

Italy’s Francesca Schiavone won the longest Grand Slam women’s singles match ever when she outlasted Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in four hours and 44 minutes, the final anguishing set spanning three hours at Australian Open 2011.

Schiavone endured muscle cramps and diaphragm problems before pulling off an amazing win, at the end of which she was struggling to stand upright.

American Jennifer Capriati looked a goner when she trailed Swiss star Martina Hingis 6-4 4-0 in the Australian Open 2002 final as the court temperatures touched 49 degrees.

But the newly toned and fit American’s brutal regime of strength and endurance training in the biting Florida heat helped her save four match points and steamroll the wilting, teary Hingis 6-2 in the third.

The US Open is renowned for steaming New York humidity as summer slips into autumn.

Heart and endurance are essential ingredients.

Legendary Jimmy Connors possessed both these traits in spades, which he summoned on his 39th birthday as he took on human backboard Aaron Krickstein in the fourth round of the 1991 US Open. Krickstein, 15 years younger than Connors, was nicknamed “Marathon Man” due to his amazing 27-8 record in five-setters. But it was the old campaigner who displayed amazing tenacity and endurance before a raucous Flushing Meadow crowd to pull off a rousing four hour, 41 minute triumph.

“This is what I live for, to win a match 7-6 in the fifth,” said Connors, who was unable to sit down in the post-match press conference after the epic contest during which he was at his fiery, fist-pumping, pelvis- thrusting best.

During the claycourt season, especially over five-set matches at Roland Garros, endurance is tested more than any physical attribute.

In 2004, Fabrice Santoro took two days and a 16-14 fifth-set verdict to prevail over compatriot Arnaud Clement in the opening round of the French Open, the duo’s home Slam.

After Clement miscued his last lob on match point, Santoro rolled in the red dirt before sitting on his chair, chucking a towel over his head and weeping from the strain of six hours, 33 minutes, at the time the longest match ever. “I don’t care (about the record). What do I get – a medal?” the vanquished Clement lamented.

The record-smashing, runaway gold medallist for ultra- marathon tennis endurance feat was the storied 183-game first- round 2010 Wimbledon clash on the far-flung 782-seat Court 18 between American giant John Isner and French qualifier Nicolas Mahut.

As dry and one-dimensional as the serve-a-thon contest was, the stamina displayed by both men was phenomenal in a match that looked like never ending.

It finally did end after 11 hours, five minutes when Isner smoked a backhand down the line prompting umpire Mohamed Lahyani, who showed plenty of endurance himself, to announce the American victorious 6-4 3-6 6-7 7-6 70-68. The Herculean fifth set (eight hours and 11 minutes long) was longer than any previously completed tennis match, both warriors left delirious with exhaustion in the aftermath.

The match commenced at 6:13 pm on Tuesday 22 June, and was completed at 4:47 pm on Thursday 24 June.

It is rightly grouped with the grandest endurance feats in all sports.

“Nothing like this will ever happen again. Ever,” Isner said.

Last-warrior-standing modern tennis is not for the faint-hearted.

This article first appeared in Australian Tennis Magazine.