Wimbledon’s marathon man John Isner was at it again, but this time he was outlasted by Kevin Anderson in an extraordinary 6hr 36min semi-final, the third-longest singles match in history.

It was going to take something special to separate these gladiators as they went ace for ace and blow for blow. With the light starting to fade close to 8pm, the saga duly got the ending that it deserved. In the 49th game of the fifth set and at love-15 up, Anderson slipped at the back of the court. He fell to the ground, so did his racket, but when Isner put his return into the centre of the court, Anderson got off the canvas like Rocky, picked up his racket left-handed and got his forehand back into play to win the point. Hollywood eat your heart out.

For the fourth consecutive Isner service game, Anderson was love-30 up. On every previous occasion, Isner’s blunderbuss serve, which peaked at 142mph, had come to his rescue. Not this time. A second serve was the chance that Anderson had been waiting for and he hit a forehand winner to engineer three break points.

Isner had saved four previous break points in this marathon final set, which was approaching the three-hour mark. Each time he produced an ace to save his skin. The fifth was saved with a serve and volley, but he could not repeat the trick, at 15-40 putting a backhand into the net.

The crowd celebrated raucously, as much with relief than anything else, but the job was not yet done and Anderson had to serve out the match. What must have been going through the 32-year-old’s head? On two of the three games that he had broken Isner, the American had broken straight back. This time he held his nerve as Isner put a forehand into the tramlines.

There were no wild celebrations from Anderson despite becoming the first South African man in 97 years to reach a Wimbledon final, in part because of exhaustion, in part in sympathy for his vanquished foe who he first played on the American college circuit 14 years ago.