Longest match in U.S. Open history sees Evans come back from 4-0 down in the fifth set to beat Khachanov

Outer-court tennis in the early rounds of the four majors never disappoints, and on Tuesday at the U.S. Open it delivered some history.

On Court 6, right in the shadow of Arthur Ashe stadium, Dan Evans and Karen Khachanov played the longest match of all time at this prestigious event. What began as a relatively non-descript match between two slumping players who have not been generating a whole lot of buzz on tour turned into a memorable marathon in which Evans outlasted Khachanov 6-7(6), 7-6(2), 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-4. It lasted…wait for it…five hours and 35 minutes.

The previous longest U.S. Open was a 1992 men’s singles semifinal featuring Stefan Edberg and Michael Chang, won by Edberg 6-7(3), 7-5, 7-6(3), 5-7, 6-4 in a measly five hours and 26 minutes.

Evans vs. Khachanov blew past that thriller with room to spare.

Tuesday’s showdown also resulted in what was surely one of the most improbable fifth-set comebacks in history. Evans trailed 4-0 in the fifth and was a point away from falling behind 5-0 on four different occasions. He was down 15-40 in the fifth game but fought off a total of four break points for 1-4.

That appeared to give Evans a second wind–or perhaps by that stage of the match it was a ninth and 10th wind–and left the Russian to think about the fatigue in his legs. With Khachanov now reeling, Evans broke twice in succession to level the score at 4-4. In the ninth game the British veteran saved a break point–again–and held for a 5-4 advantage.

From there it was all over for Khachanov, although he did do well to come up with two of his best points in the fifth set to stave off match points at 0-40 and 15-40. At long last, Evans converted his third opportunity by executing a perfect point that forced his opponent into a backhand error.

“It was sort of who could last the longest in the end,” Evans said during his press conference. “I just carried on fighting, really. I just tried to scrape little by little. When you’re a kid you’re told to fight until the end. That’s rule number one. That’s what I’ve done my entire career. It sort of paid off today.

“I just kept looking at the clock and tried to hang in, hang in. It was nuts. It was just a crazy, crazy match. It’s obviously a match I’ll remember forever.”

And he should–because, well, it was a match that lasted forever.

Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.