Irish tennis players try to break world record with marathon match

Four Irish tennis players will attempt to break the Guinness world record for the longest game of tennis, playing for more than 60 hours over the next three days.

It started with a relaxed serve at 8am on Friday, in Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club, Ranelagh, south Dublin. The marathon Guinness World Record attempt is to raise funds for Tennis Ireland's 'Enjoy Tennis' programme, which introduces the game to people with disabilities.

Two former Davis Cup players make up one of the doubles teams, James Cluskey and David Mullins. Two Trinity College tennis players, Luke McGuire and Daniel O’Neill, make up the other pair.

"Well done lads you've done your first minute" David Spillane, vice president of the Leinster branch of Tennis Ireland joked. After the first hour the players let out a small congratulatory whoop, tinged with anticipation for the test of endurance ahead.

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Under the World Record rules the four players cannot leave the court even for a toilet break, but every hour they accrue a five minute rest period. The players plan to play for eight hours straight to build up their rest time, and take a 40 minute nap in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Liam O’Donohue, president of Tennis Ireland’s Leinster branch, is one of the organisers behind the record attempt. “They’re going to go as fast as they can from that court into the office where there are four mats on the floor, and then they’ve a similar slot on Sunday morning,” he said.

The current record for the longest doubles tennis match is 58 hours, but there is a completed attempt of 60 hours and 40 seconds that has yet to be verified and approved by the World Record body, which the four Irish men are aiming to beat. “All going well they’ll put their rackets down at 8 o’clock on Sunday night,” O’Donohue said.

Sleep deprivation

In preparation for the record attempt the players got advice from an endurance runner Gerry Duffy, and Prof Aidan Moran, an expert in sports psychology at University College Dublin.

The hardest period is expected to be after their second sleep in the early hours of Sunday morning, and the players have been warned of possible hallucinations brought on by sleep deprivation.

On Sunday volunteers helping the effort plan to set up a screen beside the court, so the players can watch the Wimbledon men’s final.

During the first hour a tennis ball hits one of the players in the groin, provoking a yelp of pain. “Our big worry is one of them gets injured, as there’s no subs,” O’Donohue laughs.

The record attempt has a fundraising target of €20,000. Currently Tennis Ireland run courses in local clubs for people with various disabilities, including people with cerebral palsy, severe autism, blind tennis, those with spinal injuries, and people in wheelchairs.

The hope is to extend the programme to bring tennis to in-patients in mental health facilities.

“About three years ago we started having a look at giving people with a disability the opportunity to play tennis,” O’Donohue said. “We started it in a couple of clubs, it now has almost 1,000 players, in over 65 tennis clubs,” he said.

Tennis Ireland funds a coach to come into a local club and run a ten week course for people with a certain disability, after which the club continues the programme.

The GoFundMe page for the record attempt had raised over €3,000 by Friday morning.