Reilly Opelka and John Isner have played their fair share of tiebreakers, but they’ve never been involved in one like this Saturday.
In the longest tie-break in a tour-level match since the ATP Tour‘s stats began in 1990, Opelka won 24-22 to edge out his compatriot in the Dallas Open semifinals. On her eighth match point, Opelka’s mini-break came after she had saved 10 set points.
The 24-year-old sealed a 7-6(7), 7-6(22) win to advance to his fourth tour-level final. The Americans have now played 12 consecutive tie-break sets in their ATP Head2Head series, with Opelka winning their last four meetings to improve to 4-1 in the matchup. There have been no breaks of serve in his last 98 games.
A truly insane tie-break to end this clash ???? @ReillyOpelka saves ???? set points before ousting Isner 7-6(7) 7-6(22) to reach the final in Dallas.#DALOopen pic.twitter.com/z6Ca7n4rz3
– Tennis TV (@TennisTV) February 13, 2022
Opelka fired 39 aces in the match, just shy of his best-of-three record of 45, and has yet to face a break point in Dallas. Isner struck 21 aces and both men won more than 85 per cent of their first serve points in a match that did not see a break point.
The marathon jump-off was eventful throughout. At the beginning there was a streak of five points with four mini-breaks. They traded mini-breaks again at 8-8, when Opelka saved a set point on the return. From there, it was all for the server until Opelka mini-breaked again and scored a historic victory with a backhand passing.
Head2Head @ReillyOpelka vs @JohnIsner
2022 @DALOpenTennis SF: Opelka 7-6(7) 7-6(22)
2019 @ATLOpenTennis 2R: Opelka 7-6(2) 6-7(5) 7-6(5)
2019 NY Open SF: Opelka 6-7(8) 7-6(14) 7-6(4)
2019 @AustralianOpen 1R: Opelka 7-6(4) 7-6(6) 6-7(4) 7-6(5)
2016 Atlanta SF: Isner 6-7(5) 6-4 6-2 https://t.co/Uwydg3iaxw– ATP Media Info (@ATPMediaInfo) February 13, 2022
Opelka will now face the winner of the duel between his compatriots Jenson Brooksby and Marcos Giron.
