IT was five hours and two minutes of scintillating tennis.
The clock showed 1.43am on a work night when this epic between defending champion Novak Djokovic and Swiss 15th seed Stanislas Wawrinka was finally over.
It says a lot about the quality of the tennis on show that the overwhelming majority of fans stuck around to witness one of the great encounters in Australian Open history.
Djokovic prevailed 1-6 7-5 6-4 6-7 12-10 in the titanic struggle.
The Serbian world No. 1 kept his bid for a third consecutive title alive, but this will undoubtedly take a toll on him going forward.
Neither man deserved to lose. They both played their part in the spectacle. They are best described as Grand Slam gladiators after that performance.
Djokovic rates this match as up there with the greatest matches he has been involved in.
He reserves the post-game ripping off of his shirt for the big occasions and it was straight off in the moments after he won.
”It definitely ranks right at the top,” Djokovic said. ”One of the longest, most interesting, and most exciting matches I played in my career. You know, he had many chances to be the winner of this match; he had a better start, he had a lot of break balls in the third, he was a break up, he was the one being aggressive.
”All the credit to him. I feel sorry that one of us had to lose. He definitely deserved to win. But I’m just thrilled to be able to fight once again up to the last moment.”
Wawrinka came out in a blaze of glory. He stormed to the first set in just 26 minutes.
His was serving down thunderbolts, punishing his opponent from the baseline with searing cross court forehands and whippy backhands down the line.
Wawrinka maintained the rage to take a 5-2 lead in the second.
Djokovic was stunned, his own serve was being picked apart and he was lacking the intimidation of a top seed.
In fact, you could have changed the rankings of each player to that point and no one would have thought twice about it.
Wawrinka was playing the match of his life. So, for Djokovic to come back in the fashion he did, in that second set to fight back from three games down, it tells you about the heart of this champion. Djokovic incredibly won that set and grabbed the third to take a two sets to one advantage.
But, Wawrinka was not done with yet, he gave another yelp in the fourth set and extended the match to a fifth.
”He made me run all over the court,” Djokovic said. ”He never gave me the same ball. He was aggressive from both sides and I didn’t know what’s coming up next.”
The fifth set started with Wawrinka breaking the Djokovic serve and Djokovic immediately breaking back in the next game.
Thereafter, it was a set that was dominated by the serving player, until, 22 games in, Djokovic finally broke the resistance of Wawrinka.
Wawrinka was proud of his efforts against the best player in the world, but obviously deflated at having to exit the tournament.
”It’s by far my best match I ever play, especially in five sets against the No. 1 player,” Wawrinka said.
”I was dealing with myself all the five hours, trying to always find solution, trying to always fight against me and against him to stay with him. At the end I was really, really close. For sure I’m really sad. It’s a big deception to lose that match. I think there is more positive than negative.”
It was just 51 minutes short of the longest match in Australian Open men’s singles history.
Djokovic was involved in that one too, against Rafael Nadal in last year’s final.
