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For Isner and Mahut, an Improbable Rematch of a Marathon MeetingBy GREG BISHOP
　　
　　When John Isner and Nicolas Mahut ran into each other one recent afternoon, talk turned, as it does with these two, to their marathon match last year at Wimbledon, otherwise known as the longest match in professional tennis history.
　　
　　Perhaps, Isner suggested, they would play again.
　　
　　Don’t even kid about that, Mahut responded.
　　
　　Fast-forward to Friday, to the All England Club and the draw for this year’s Wimbledon, which begins Monday. Both players enter the tournament unseeded, and since the draw is random for unseeded players, each had a pool of 127 potential opponents.
　　
　　Whether through divine tennis intervention, mere coincidence or dumb luck, a tournament official pulled two familiar names in succession. He instantly double-checked them. One said Isner. The other said Mahut. He said nothing. But his face said everything. The following announcement drew a gasp, then laughter, from the crowd.
　　
　　“It was like lightning strikes again,” said Brad Gilbert, the coach and ESPN commentator. “He couldn’t believe it. To pull the same match again, it’s comical, it’s crazy. The only fitting thing to do is throw them back on the same court, near the statue of their match.”
　　
　　Last year’s match between the two took place on Court 18, over three days and more than 11 hours. Isner ultimately triumphed, 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68. The marathon was notable not for rallies, or strategy, or poetic grace, but for two super servers and their will to continue booming aces. At the time, everyone from Andy Roddick to Rafael Nadal to the participants themselves insisted a match of such length would never be duplicated.
　　
　　Isner, whose feet resembled sliced deli meat when the match ended, hoped so, for the athletes’ sake if nothing else. So did Mahut, the more energetic of the two, who somehow maintained his spiked hair and managed to dive for balls throughout.
　　
　　While a repeat remains improbable, the longest-match rematch is scheduled to begin Tuesday, and the tennis world will step back in time to the moment that largely defines both players and last year’s tournament. Gilbert cautioned against setting expectations too high. Because, if anything, the Isner-Mahut narrative took a depressing turn when the marathon match ended.
　　
　　The two took months to fully return to form, to recover not only physically, but also emotionally and mentally. Isner, seeded 23rd last year, grew tired of answering the same questions about the same match and ended up taking a long break. And he was the winner of the match.
　　
　　“He was trying to get back to normality,” said Gilbert, who called most every point of the longest match, leaving his throat predictably sore afterward. “I think it had a carryover effect on him. I think it had to.”
　　
　　This time, the players are more closely ranked: Isner is 46th heading into the tournament, Mahut 99th. Last year, Mahut needed to squeeze through qualifying into the main draw, while Isner’s ranking was rising, before he was slowed by injuries and perhaps longest-match fatigue.
　　
　　From that match and the reaction afterward, the players forged an unlikely friendship. Tournament officials placed a plaque commemorating the match on Court 18. As Wimbledon neared, Isner and Mahut even planned to practice together Sunday, if only the law of the draw had not interfered.
　　
　　“I still think about that match, and I can’t believe it happened,” Chris Evert, the ESPN commentator and three-time Wimbledon champion, said on a recent ESPN conference call. “It’s like, how is it humanly possible to hold serve for that many games and somebody not break down or choke or whatever? It’s a historical match, and I don’t think that streak will ever be broken.”
　　
　　According to the ATP World Tour, Wimbledon has had repeats of first-round matches in consecutive years eight times in the Open era. That’s out of 2,816 matches. But none were for a match like Isner-Mahut I, which drew international attention and landed Isner on the David Letterman show.
　　
　　Perhaps, Evert said, memories of the marathon will spark one or both players in their return to Wimbledon. Perhaps the rematch will add another chapter to their rivalry. Regardless, it will consume an atypical amount of attention early in the tournament for a first-round match between unheralded and unseeded players.
　　
　　Because Nadal and Roger Federer sit on opposite sides of the men’s draw, while the sisters Venus and Serena Williams reside on opposite sides of the women’s, the potential for another round of finals between familiar combatants is alive. But that can wait, for the rematch of the marathon match, for Isner-Mahut II.
　　
　　“You just hope it’s not a blowout,” Gilbert said.