WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — The All England Club says it will introduce fifth-set tiebreakers at Wimbledon next year when a match reaches 12-12.
The grass-court Grand Slam tournament is the second of the four majors to use a fifth-set tiebreaker to determine a singles match. The U.S. Open, however, start its fifth-set tiebreakers at 6-6.
At the Australian Open and the French Open, players still have to win by two games in the final set in singles matches.
In 2010, John Isner and Nicolas Mahut played the longest match in history at Wimbledon. The match took more than 11 hours over three days before Isner won 70-68 in the final set.
All England Club chairman Philip Brook says "our view was that the time had come to introduce a tiebreak method for matches that had not reached their natural conclusion at a reasonable point during the deciding set."
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