Today in M25 Heraklion ITF tournament, match finished after 3 points, when Alexandros Skorilas retired against Pavlos Tsitsipas. The match lasted only 1 minute. Is it the shortest and fastest match in history? Has there been some other matches where retirement happened in the first game?
It used to be that if you were injured but ranked about 80 you’d enter a major and collect the cheque in singles and doubles, because you have to, and grit out a loss while injured.
If you want the quickest completed match you need to eliminate outliers.
~Should be since 1950. That’s when the modern era of tennis started to spark into life.
~Eiminate tanking or injuries
Margaret Court won the 1963 Eastern Grass Court Championships crown in a record 24-minute match against Darlene Hard, 6–1, 6–1.
Steffi Graf demolished Zvereva 0 and 0 in 32 minutes.
During Wimbledon 1969, Sue Tutt beat Marion Boundy 6–2, 6–0 in 20 minutes
In the men’s game since 1968 there have been 18 triples bagels. The last was was Emilio Gomez vs Adam Hornby in a 2016 Davis Cup match.
Steffi Graf is the only ever person to win 24 straight games without loss at majors.
The shortest completed men’s singles match in the open era was in 2001 Shanghai. Li Na’s husband, Shan Jiang, was given a wild card into the tournament despite the fact that he was not a professional tennis player. He lost 6-0, 6-0 to world number 67 Francisco Clavet in 25 minutes.