7 Days in Hell (2015)
by
Jake Szymanski
If the makers had cut down on the sex part, this could have been a great tennis mockumentary. The Isner-Mahaut marathon match had shaken tennis world out of the stupor. Endless tennis matches were quite a possibility. Everyone remembers how Isner won the last set 70-68 on the third day in 2010 but few remember that he lost the 2018 semi-final by 26-24 to Kevin Anderson. Their semi-final went on for 6 hours 36 minutes and forced the second semi-final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal to be left incomplete on Friday and be completed on Saturday. That was the last straw for the Wimbledon authorities who finally decided to enforce a fifth set tiebreaker after 12-12. Novak and Roger Federer played first such TB in the final very next year.
The mockumentary takes potshots at Richard Williams, Britishness, royalty, tradition, power tennis, doping, question of default, tiger moms, racket throwing, players' wigs and outfits and what not. And all of that in 45 minutes of runtime. That is quite astounding.
The storyline is quite simple- a 'bad boy' champion returns to challenge the current boy wonder and the two go hammer and tongs at each other in the first round at Wimbledon. The fifth set gets stretched to beyond 100 games each in the fifth set. Serena Williams, Chris Evert, David Copperfield and John McEnroe give bytes and turn this into a credible show.
#tennis #mockumentary #wimbledon #isnermahout #fifthset
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