Cabal and Farah finally land knockout blow to win marathon Wimbledon doubles final

Nicolas Mahut got knocked down once, twice, and a third time. Finally, following a marathon Wimbledon men’s doubles final, he was down for the count.

Juan-Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah captured their first Grand Slam title by outlasting Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 7-6(6), 6-7(5), 6-3 after four hours and 57 minutes on Saturday.

“I’m speechless,” Farah said. “Really, I kept watching the watch through the first and second set. I’m like, ‘we finished the second set and it’s been two hours and 15 minutes play. This is ridiculous. How long is this?’ From there on, we just kept battling, kept battling, just focus on the game. Once we lose the fourth set, we have that break. We sat down, I put my legs up, I got a rub by my physio. Once we come back to the court, I seriously had a second wind. I felt so good again. I feel like we played unreal that (fifth) set.”

“Just crazy,” Cabal added. “The moment we’re living right now is just crazy. We never actually won three matches here in a row. No two matches in a regular tournament ATP on grass. Now we won two tournaments in a row and we’re No. 1 in the world. What I can say?”

“What just happened?” Farah asked.

Perhaps he forgot because the final lasted so darn long.

It was supposed to be an afternoon match, and started as such when the women’s singles final between Simona Halep and Serena Williams–won by Halep 6-2, 6-2–lasted less than an hour. But this doubles marathon spilled over well into the night, forcing the roof to be closed prior to the fifth set and postponing the women’s doubles final from Saturday to Sunday.

Speaking of spills, Mahut first got drilled just above his left eye midway through the first set. That required a five-minute medical timeout during which ice was applied to reduce obvious swelling. Then on back-to-back points in the fifth set, the Frenchman again got nailed and went down to the turf–first in the shoulder and for the third and final time in his side. Exactly one point later, Roger-Vasselin promptly hit Cabal with a volley–albeit not as squarely as Mahut had gotten it.

Whereas the first incident was scary, the final exchange of peggings was harmless and thoroughly amused the crowd. It was a crowd that included Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle in the front row of the Royal Box.

“(It’s) not every day the whole royalty of the UK is watching you play tennis,” Farah assured. “I mean, it’s just indescribable. That court is just magical. I don’t have any other words to describe that court; it’s just magical. Every time I’ve been in that court I feel the same thing.

“It’s the best court on tour,” Cabal agreed.

“You’re just in the most exclusive tennis court in the world,” Farah continued. “The whole history that court has is just crazy. To think you grew up watching it, now you’re winning in it, just becomes even more magical.”