The longest Grand Slam final lasted 5 hours, 53 minutes

The longest Grand Slam singles final on record in the Open Era is the 2012 Australian Open men’s final: Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal in 5 hours, 53 minutes. Djokovic won 5–7, 6–4, 6–2, 6–7(5), 7–5 on Melbourne’s hard court. The Australian Open’s official retrospective identifies it as the longest major final, and Guinness World Records lists the Open Era record. It remains the benchmark as of October 1, 2026.

Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s 2025 Roland-Garros final came close at 5 hours, 29 minutes—24 minutes shorter. It set the Paris final record, not the overall Grand Slam final record, according to the ATP’s match report.

How the finals compare

“Longest” here means reported match duration, not the number of games or the time the ball was actually in play. These three men’s singles finals show why those measures differ.

Games calculated by adding both players’ game totals in the published set scores; a tiebreak counts as one game. These are selected comparisons, not a complete ranking.

The 2012 final lasted 56 minutes longer than the 2019 Wimbledon final despite containing 13 fewer games. Game count alone cannot explain duration: a game can finish in four points or extend through repeated deuces, while rallies and time between points also vary. Match duration is not a direct measure of rally length or physical workload.

Why Djokovic–Nadal lasted so long

The match combined extended baseline exchanges with a scoreline that repeatedly postponed the finish. Djokovic led two sets to one, but Nadal won the fourth-set tiebreak to force a fifth. Nadal then led 4–2 in the deciding set before Djokovic recovered and won 7–5. The contemporary Associated Press report carried by ESPN describes the long rallies, including a 31-shot exchange late in the match.

The final ended at 1:37 a.m., and both players were given chairs during the trophy presentation, as the same report recounts.

Djokovic–Nadal also displaced a longstanding benchmark: Mats Wilander’s victory over Ivan Lendl in the 1988 US Open final, which lasted 4 hours, 54 minutes, according to the ATP’s rivalry archive.

Could today’s scoring rules produce a longer final?

Yes. A deciding-set tiebreak limits the accumulation of ordinary games, not the total match time.

The Australian Open used advantage final sets in 2012, introducing a 10-point tiebreak at 6–6 in 2019. All four majors adopted that deciding-set format from Roland-Garros 2022. A player must reach at least 10 points and lead by two.

The 2012 final’s 7–5 deciding-set score would also end a set under today’s rules: it never reached 6–6, where the tiebreak is triggered. That does not predict how the players would have performed under a different format. Alcaraz–Sinner’s 2025 final demonstrates that a match can still exceed five hours under the newer rules.

Format also matters when comparing categories. The 2026 Grand Slam rulebook specifies best-of-five sets for men’s main-draw singles and best-of-three for women’s singles. Their duration records therefore come from different scoring opportunities.

For records beyond championship matches, see our guide to longest tennis match records.