Tennis: Exhausted Robredo calls for final set tie-breaks

Marathon man Tommy Robredo, who spent almost 13 hours on court at the French Open, called for final set tie-breaks on Tuesday as his record-setting tournament ran out of gas in the quarter-finals.

The 31-year-old Spaniard went down to a tired 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 defeat to compatriot David Ferrer in just 95 minutes.

He simply had nothing left in the tank after needing to come back from two sets to love down in three successive rounds — the first man to do so since Henri Cochet at Wimbledon in 1927.

Ferrer had reached the last eight having spent five hours fewer on the courts.

“I prefer tiebreaks, but that’s my personal opinion,” said Robredo.

Of the four Grand Slam events, only the US Open has a final set tie-break.

“In the US Open there is a tie-break in the fifth set. When the crowd see that we are approaching the tiebreak, the entire crowd stands up. At 7-6, 7-all, sometimes it gets a bit boring.”

Robredo said even the drama of John Isner‘s 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (7/3), 70-68 win over Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010 — the longest match in history at 11 hours, 5 minutes, does not convince him otherwise.

“A match like that, it’s not good. That’s far too long. That’s all I have to say.”

dj/cw