Second longest match in Wimbledon history

This is me on Court 1 during a tour of Wimbledon in 2008.

Most of what I know of Wimbledon 2012 before today had been what I've seen on Twitter. That's pretty typical of me; Twitter and sports go together like peanut butter and jelly for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone. (Even though a certain co-worker of mine thinks I need a Twitter-intervention.)

Other than a few minutes of the Championships over breakfast throughout this first week of play, I didn't get to watch much until this afternoon. I flipped it on to see the American Sam Querrey in a fifth set with No. 16 Marin Cilic. I had planned to do a few errands, but I figured I might as well watch the rest of the match.

Talk about long matches
Well, about an hour later, it was finally over. The fifth set (with no tiebreaker for the deciding set, remember) went to a score of 17-15, in favor of Cilic who will move on to the fourth round after defeating Querrey 7-6, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 17-15. The longer it went on, the more historical the match became. It ended up being a five-hour, 31-minute match, the second longest in Wimbledon history.

Querrey wouldn't quit. He came back from two sets down just to force the fifth set. He also had the chance to serve for the match many times in the fifth, but he just couldn't get it done. It was a bunch of games where the server did his job - he held serve. Breaks looked possible many times; Querrey got a couple points away from the match with a 30-love lead on Cilic's serve. And Cilic had the same kind of opportunities to break.

Finally, Cilic got the break and then served out the match that next game for the 17-15 fifth set and match win. A good example of a couple of guys who know how to hold their serves, that's for sure. Remember John Isner beating Nicolas Mahut 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6, 70-68 back in 2010 for the longest match?

Murray misses curfew
The other match going on was sentimental favorite No. 4 Andy Murray and Marcos Baghdatis. They were on Centre Court and played under the roof for part of the match. What got interesting was the Wimbledon curfew, which is 11 p.m.

As the time drew closer, Murray was up two sets to one in the fourth. He dominated the set, and when 11 o'clock came, he was up 5-1. Instead of calling the match for the day and having them come back to finish, they were able to squeeze in the final game to give Murray the 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 win.

I would have loved to have read some of the stories and comments on that one had they decided to suspend play when Murray was that close to the finish line. I'm pulling for Murray to finally get that Grand Slam title. I can often pull for the underdog, mostly because I get sick of the same people or teams winning all the time. So I hope he can get it done.

Upset city
Murray might be just a tiny bit closer because this week in the upset category, No. 2 Rafeal Nadal lost in five sets in the second round to Lukas Rosol, ranked No. 100. That was certainly all over Twitter when it happened. I couldn't believe it. Then, Roger Federer had to pull off some magic in five sets just to survive the third round.
That's one thing that is so great about sports, the threat of the upset is always there, which turns brackets and draws upside down. A couple of years ago, Wimbledon had its fair share of upsets as well. I guess we'll see who else might fall in the second week of this year's Wimbledon.