The epic tennis match that just finished on Court 18 at Wimbledon was a genuine work of art crafted by two athletes playing at the top of their game. The statistics are overwhelming, in part because of the epic length of the match... well over 200 aces, more than 160 in the final set... a final fifth-set score of 70 games to 68, a single match that took three days to play. But the statistics are impressive really because they represent such an extremely high level of play over that 11 hour, 5 minute period.

John Isner and Nicolas Mahut have given the game of tennis its most legendary match ever played, and it was only the first round of the tournament. The ratio of winners to unforced errors for both players was stunningly good, showing that both had to compete against a top-level opponent without the benefit of the other throwing away points.

After 11 hours, over three days, John Isner was hitting serves at 135 miles per hour in the 137th game of the fifth set. At that point, when he evened the score at 30-all in what would become the penultimate game of the match, Isner had won 472 points total over five sets, to Mahut's 500. Isner's serve carried him, clearly, throughout the epic fifth set, even as he looked hobbled by exhaustion near the end of day two. 

Mahut had to hold serve to stay in the match fully 65 consecutive times, and he did, until the very last game of the match. Even then, Isner had to take two points in a row, to win from 30-all. He had one match point only, and he used it to hit a passing-shot winner, struck elegantly and precisely, to win the match. The two men embraced in what appeared to be sincere mutual appreciation for having come together to construct this historic monument of a tennis match. 

The All-England Club would honor both men, and the chair umpire, for their roles in realizing this astonishing historic achievement, and both men would express their feeling that it was an honor to share the court with the other for this three-day epic struggle. Sportsmanship prevailed, and these two athletes are now defined as pioneers who took the sport to a level that had never before been contemplated. 

For anyone who has played the game, the notion that two individuals could last so long, matching each other point for point, ace for ace, winner for winner, and game for game, without relenting, without collapsing, without despair or hostility, is an achievement of otherworldly proportions. Court 18 should be remembered as historic ground, a workshop where two great competitors gave the world one of the great works of art their sport could deliver.