Instead of 11 hours and 70-68 in the fifth set, it took John Isner only three minutes over two hours to defeat Nicolas Mahut in their eagerly-anticipated rematch at Wimbledon.
After last year's record-breaking three-day epic on Court 18, it seemed inevitable that the first-round repeat would fail to live up to the hype, and so it proved as Isner dominated to book a second-round date with 16th seed Nicolas Almagro.
Mahut led by a break in the third set but Isner hit back to force a second tie-break before sealing victory on his second match point on Court Three. He won 7-6 (7/4) 6-2 7-6 (8/6).
The American said: ‘‘It wasn't easy but obviously it was considerably quicker than last time. I was happy how I played, especially in the third set.
‘‘I was thinking if I lost that set we probably wouldn't be able to finish, and then it would have been the match going into a second day and people would have been talking about maybe a third.
"I'm glad they put us out on this court. I don't know if they wanted to tarnish the memory of what happened on Court 18. It was unlikely it would live up to that game."
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