--- title: Longest Matches in Sports History description: "Yogi Berra is known for his many pithy malapropisms that remain a part of the public consciousness. Phrases like, \"A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore\" or \"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.\" Of all of Yogi's many quotes, possibly the most famous is his statement, \"it ain't over 'til it's over.\"\n\nIn many sports, this just isn't the case. When games are played on a clock, a team can easily amass an insurmountable lead, long before the game has concluded. In football, even with a lead of only one point, a team can repeatedly down the ball making the game over even when there was two minutes left on the clock.\n\nBut Yogi played baseball, a sport in which seemingly miraculous comebacks are a relatively common occurrence. It is a sport in which the winner really can never be known until the game is over. This \"never give up\" attitude has permeated into other sports, so today we'll be looking at competitors who refused to quit until it was over, no matter how long that took.\n\n## Hockey\n\nWe're going to start with a sport that you wouldn't expect to see on this list: hockey. Hockey is a sport that doesn't lend itself to particularly long games, both because it has a 60 minute game clock and because games are allowed to end in ties. But this was the playoffs, and games in an elimination bracket can never end in ties.\n\nIt was game one of the 1936 Stanley Cup semi-finals between the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Maroons. At the end of the three 20 minute periods, the game was scoreless. Because it was the playoffs, overtime would be an additional full 20 minute period. Both teams failed to score, so it was time for the second overtime at which point the game becomes sudden death. But still, the game remained scoreless. Then there was a third overtime, fourth, fifth, and finally sixth.\n\nMud Bruneteau had been called up from the minor league Detroit Olympics to join the Red Wings just two weeks earlier. The 21 year old rookie was still adjusting to the faster pace of the NHL, and he was an unlikely candidate to bring this marathon event to a close. At 16:30 into the 6th overtime, an errant pass left the puck rolling and Bruneteau swatted it at the goal, bringing the final score to 1-0. He may not have had the most impressive career in hockey, but thanks to this game Mud Bruneteau will forever be remembered by hockey fans.\n\nAt just under three hours, the longest ever hockey game is only about the length of an average baseball game. Still, this game deserves recognition for being the length of nearly three full NHL games in a sport whose rules actively try to avoid this very thing from happening.\n\n## Baseball\n\nThere are two contenders for the longest MLB game of all time, depending on how you measure longest. In terms of innings, the longest MLB game was in 1920 between the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves.\n\nThe game went 26 full innings, however it was only 3 hours and 50 minutes long. That's well above average for a normal MLB game, but it's hardly outrageous. One of the things that makes this game so unusual, aside from having the most innings in a major league game, is that it ended in a tie. After the 26th inning completed, the game was called on account of darkness.\n\nIn terms of time, rather than innings, the longest major league game came in 1984 when the Chicago White Sox battled the Milwaukee Brewers for 25 innings. The game was suspended at 1 am after 17 innings. It resumed the following night and finally ended when Harold Baines hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 25th inning to lead the White Sox to a 7-6 victory after 8 hours and 6 minutes.\n\nThose may have been the longest major league games, but not the longest professional game. That award goes to the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings. The triple-A teams for the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles began their bout on the cold evening of April 18th, 1981.\n\nThe Red Wings led the game 1-0 after the 7th inning, but the Paw Sox managed to tie the game up in the bottom of the 9th. Twelve more innings of shutout baseball followed into the early morning of April 19th when the Red Wings finally scored a run in the top of the 21st. They let out a sigh of relief, but perhaps they led their guard down too soon as the Sox once again tied the score in the bottom of the 21st. At 4:09 am, after 8 hours and 7 minutes, and 32 innings, the game was suspended to be completed at a later date.\n\nThat later date would be June 23. The MLB had gone on strike two weeks prior, so even though it was a minor league game it was making national headlines. It had already broken the record by longest game by 1 minute and the record for most innings by 6, so baseball fans the nation over were excited to see what was in store for the remainder of this game. The sellout crowd packed the stadium to witness what was undoubtedly going to be an exciting day of baseball. All 18 minutes of it.\n\nWhen the game resumed that day in June, it saw Dave Koza hit a bases loaded single during the Paw Sox first at bat of the day, ending the game with a score of 3-2. Fans in attendance that day may have been disappointed by such a short outing, but they still got to witness the conclusion of the 33 inning, 8 hour and 25 minute longest professional baseball game of all time.\n\n## Tennis\n\nTennis scoring can seem a bit strange to those unfamiliar with the sport. Matches are played in either best of 3 or 5 sets, with each set being first to 6 games, and each game being first to four points. Rather than counting off points 1, 2, 3, 4, the points get their names from the French word for egg followed by the locations of the minute hand on a clock. A game also needs to be won by at least two points, and a set needs to won by two games unless the players are tied at six games each in which case the first to win the seventh game wins the match.\n\nConfused yet? We're not done. At the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, excluding the US Open, if a match went to the final set, that set had to be won by two games. A 7-6 final score was possible for the first four sets, but not for the final.\n\nSo what does all of this mean? To start, it means to win a game and then a set, a player needs to show an actual advantage over the opponent. If players just traded points back and forth, whoever went first would win each game and that's not terribly exciting. Thus the requirement to win a game by two points is to demonstrate one player actually bested the other in that game. The same principle applies to games in a set, except with most games having a tiebreaker set at 6-6 in the interest of time.\n\nThe other thing this means is that theoretically a single game can last forever if no player ever scores two points in a row, though that is extremely unlikely. What is much more likely is that, in a set that doesn't have a tiebreaker game, it can take an extraordinarily long time for a player to win two games in a row. Such is the tale of one match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championship, a match that one professional player claimed likely took six months off each of the men's careers.\n\nJohn Isner and Nicolas Mahut went head to head in the first round of the men's singles event on June 22, 2010. They completed four sets with scores of 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, and 7-6. The match then ended for the day on account of darkness. Sets three and four may have both ended with a tiebreaker game, but this was Wimbledon, so the final set needed someone to win by two games.\n\nThe men resumed playing on June 23, and it was a hotly contested battle. As expected, they found themselves at a 6-6 score. Then 7-7. Then 20-20. When the game score reached 47-47 the scoreboard stopped working. It wasn't built to handle numbers larger than that, so IBM had to send in a team to repair it. Once again, a lack of sunlight caused the match to be halted and to resume for an unprecedented third day.\n\nOn June 24, there would finally be a winner. Unlike when they Paw Sox resumed their legendary game, this final day was not going to be an 18 minute affair. The grueling match continued until finally the American Isner prevailed. The final score of the fifth set was 70-68. The entire match lasted for 11 hours and 5 minutes, with 8 hours and 11 minutes of that representing only the fifth set. Unsurprisingly, after such a strenuously match, Isner lost the second round of the tournament.\n\nTennis's game structure allows for longer matches and players were used to having to push themselves to extreme lengths, but this match was a different beast entirely. The previous longest tennis match had lasted for 6 hours and 33 minutes, a record that was absolutely destroyed by over four and a half hours. Thanks to changes to tiebreakers structures, the 11 hour record will likely remain unbroken forever.\n\n## Cricket\n\nFor those viewers not from the United States, these times may not seem that impressive. Test and first-class cricket matches take 3-5 days with at least six hours of play each day, making an average game take 18-30 hours of play. Five day test matches are the standard for international play, but that wasn't always the case. There used to be \"timeless test\" matches that would be played until a team won, regardless of how long that took.\n\nUnfortunately, because the question \"how does cricket work\" is most commonly answered with the question \"how long do have?\" we're not going to be able to describe the matches and scoring. The most important thing to know is that cricket has a lot of strategic elements involving playing defensively and utilizing the clock to play for a draw when behind. The purpose of a timeless test may have just been to eliminate draws, but doing so fundamentally changes the strategy of the game so much that by removing the clock, it encourages games to last as long as possible.\n\nSo how much longer can a game that would normally have been scheduled to last 30 hours possibly take? The simple answer is we will never know, but we know the longest attempt. In 1939, South Africa and England played a timeless test game in Durban, South Africa. The match began on March 3 and would last until March 14. Sundays were naturally the Lord's day, so play was scheduled for 10 of those 12 days, though the 8th scheduled day was canceled due to rain. This left 9 days for the match totaling 43 hours and 16 minutes of play.\n\nIn that time, 1,981 runs were scored. England was 316 & 654 for 5 to South Africa's 530 & 481. So what on Earth do any of those numbers mean? They mean that after 9 days of play totaling over 43 hours, the \"timeless test\", the premier form of cricket that would not allow a match to end in a draw, ended in a draw. England's team only needed 42 more runs to win, but their boat back to England was leaving the following day so they offered the draw.\n\nThis was not the first time a timeless test had to be declared a draw due to boat schedules, and it was the final time a timeless test would be attempted. Teams didn't have their own private ships, so they were bound to the schedules of cargo and passenger vessels. When a game can take an indeterminate amount of days or even weeks, scheduling travel can be extremely difficult, as can scheduling the matches themselves, and so timeless tests were abandoned.\n\n## Chess\n\nYou may be shocked to learn that the International Olympic Committee as well as more than 100 countries recognize chess as a sport. Not only is it incredibly competitive, but at high levels of play chess is also a great way to lose weight. Grandmaster chess players can burn as many as 6,000 calories per day in competitions just from the exception amount of brain activity, and also likely from a bit of stress as well. Their times can also put all other sports to shame as well.\n\nThe longest individual game of chess took place in 1989 and lasted over 20 hours. That's pretty impressive for a one on one competition rather than a team sport, but the longest chess match of all time is on a completely different level.\n\nThe 1984 Chess World Championship came down to a match between reigning champion Anatoly Karpov and 21 year old challenger Garry Kasparov. The match was scheduled to take place until either player won six games, and at first it looked like it was going to be an easy victory.\n\nKarpov established dominance early by winning games 3, 6, 7 and 9. It wasn't even ten games in and the champion was already leading 4-0. Reporters were likely already writing their coverage of the event, but Kasparov wasn't ready to give in. He dug deep and was able to battle Karpov to 17 more draws before finally losing again, leaving the score at 5-0. Karpov only needed one more win, but it was never going to come.\n\nAfter four more draws, Kasparov took game 32, finally winning his first game against the defending champion. This was followed by a series of 14 more draws, followed by Kasparov winning games 47 and 48 back to back. It was after the 48th game that the International Chess Federation's President took to the stage to make an important announcement. The match was to be abandoned. They had completed 48 games over the course of 5 months of play, and the match would be canceled for the health of the players.\n\nNeither player was happy with the announcement, least of all Kasparov. He had just won back to back games and appeared to have been playing better chess than the champion. However, though the timing of the announcement was suspicious at best as it meant Karpov would remain the champion by default, it was not entirely baseless.\n\nKasparov may have understood the importance of remaining physically fit in competitive chess better than his opponent, as he still appeared to be in great shape and only playing better and better. On the other hand, Karpov had lost 22 pounds during the course of the match. Calling the match based on health concerns wasn't unreasonable, but it may have been inaccurate to claim it was for the health of both players. However, despite his physical condition and appearing to now be playing from a disadvantage, Karpov was vocal about his desire to finish the match as well.\n\n1984 became the first and only year that the World Chess Championship did not have a declared winner. The following year the two men got to play a rematch in the finals with the new match structure: they would play 24 games with Karpov retaining his title if neither player had a lead after those 24 games. That year, Garry Kasparov became the youngest world chess champion in history.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Yogi Berra's quote, 'it ain't over 'til it's over,' highlights baseball's potential for late-game comebacks.\n- The longest hockey game lasted nearly three hours, with Mud Bruneteau scoring the winning goal in the sixth overtime.\n- The longest MLB game by innings was 26, ending in a tie due to darkness, while the longest by time was 25 innings, lasting 8 hours and 6 minutes.\n- The longest tennis match lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes, with John Isner defeating Nicolas Mahut in the fifth set 70-68.\n- The longest chess match lasted 5 months with 48 games, ending without a declared winner due to health concerns.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What is the longest hockey game in history?\n\nThe longest hockey game in history was the 1936 Stanley Cup semi-finals between the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Maroons, which lasted 6 overtime periods and ended with a score of 1-0.\n\n### What is the longest baseball game by innings?\n\nThe longest MLB game by innings was in 1920 between the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves, which went 26 innings.\n\n### What is the longest baseball game by time?\n\nThe longest MLB game by time was in 1984 between the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers, which lasted 8 hours and 6 minutes over 25 innings.\n\n### What is the longest professional baseball game?\n\nThe longest professional baseball game was between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings in 1981, which lasted 33 innings and 8 hours and 25 minutes.\n\n### What is the longest tennis match in history?\n\nThe longest tennis match in history was the 2010 Wimbledon Championship match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, which lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes, with the final set lasting 8 hours and 11 minutes.\n\n### What is a timeless test in cricket?\n\nA timeless test in cricket is a match that is played until a team wins, regardless of how long that takes, without a set time limit.\n\n### What was the longest cricket match?\n\nThe longest cricket match was the 1939 timeless test between South Africa and England, which lasted 9 days and 43 hours and 16 minutes of play.\n\n### What is the longest individual game of chess?\n\nThe longest individual game of chess took place in 1989 and lasted over 20 hours.\n\n### What was the longest chess match in history?\n\nThe longest chess match in history was the 1984 Chess World Championship between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov, which lasted 48 games over 5 months.\n\n### Why was the 1984 Chess World Championship abandoned?\n\nThe 1984 Chess World Championship was abandoned after 48 games due to health concerns for the players, particularly Anatoly Karpov, who had lost 22 pounds during the match.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Side Projects video: Longest Matches in Sports History](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px4mRbk_dCU)\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://sideprojects.pub/article/longest-matches-in-sports-history.md canonical: https://sideprojects.pub/article/longest-matches-in-sports-history datePublished: 2022-12-02 dateModified: 2026-07-28 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://sideprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Side Projects image: "https://media.sideprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/px4mRbk_dCU/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: bcdeb5c24ad100a1796d15761aa0496dc0bf61a81153328b01fec4296c38a111 tokens: 4334 summaryUrl: https://sideprojects.pub/article/longest-matches-in-sports-history.md.summary.md --- Yogi Berra is known for his many pithy malapropisms that remain a part of the public consciousness. Phrases like, "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore" or "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." Of all of Yogi's many quotes, possibly the most famous is his statement, "it ain't over 'til it's over." In many sports, this just isn't the case. When games are played on a clock, a team can easily amass an insurmountable lead, long before the game has concluded. In football, even with a lead of only one point, a team can repeatedly down the ball making the game over even when there was two minutes left on the clock. But Yogi played baseball, a sport in which seemingly miraculous comebacks are a relatively common occurrence. It is a sport in which the winner really can never be known until the game is over. This "never give up" attitude has permeated into other sports, so today we'll be looking at competitors who refused to quit until it was over, no matter how long that took. ## Hockey We're going to start with a sport that you wouldn't expect to see on this list: hockey. Hockey is a sport that doesn't lend itself to particularly long games, both because it has a 60 minute game clock and because games are allowed to end in ties. But this was the playoffs, and games in an elimination bracket can never end in ties. It was game one of the 1936 Stanley Cup semi-finals between the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Maroons. At the end of the three 20 minute periods, the game was scoreless. Because it was the playoffs, overtime would be an additional full 20 minute period. Both teams failed to score, so it was time for the second overtime at which point the game becomes sudden death. But still, the game remained scoreless. Then there was a third overtime, fourth, fifth, and finally sixth. Mud Bruneteau had been called up from the minor league Detroit Olympics to join the Red Wings just two weeks earlier. The 21 year old rookie was still adjusting to the faster pace of the NHL, and he was an unlikely candidate to bring this marathon event to a close. At 16:30 into the 6th overtime, an errant pass left the puck rolling and Bruneteau swatted it at the goal, bringing the final score to 1-0. He may not have had the most impressive career in hockey, but thanks to this game Mud Bruneteau will forever be remembered by hockey fans. At just under three hours, the longest ever hockey game is only about the length of an average baseball game. Still, this game deserves recognition for being the length of nearly three full NHL games in a sport whose rules actively try to avoid this very thing from happening. ## Baseball There are two contenders for the longest MLB game of all time, depending on how you measure longest. In terms of innings, the longest MLB game was in 1920 between the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves. The game went 26 full innings, however it was only 3 hours and 50 minutes long. That's well above average for a normal MLB game, but it's hardly outrageous. One of the things that makes this game so unusual, aside from having the most innings in a major league game, is that it ended in a tie. After the 26th inning completed, the game was called on account of darkness. In terms of time, rather than innings, the longest major league game came in 1984 when the Chicago White Sox battled the Milwaukee Brewers for 25 innings. The game was suspended at 1 am after 17 innings. It resumed the following night and finally ended when Harold Baines hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 25th inning to lead the White Sox to a 7-6 victory after 8 hours and 6 minutes. Those may have been the longest major league games, but not the longest professional game. That award goes to the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings. The triple-A teams for the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles began their bout on the cold evening of April 18th, 1981. The Red Wings led the game 1-0 after the 7th inning, but the Paw Sox managed to tie the game up in the bottom of the 9th. Twelve more innings of shutout baseball followed into the early morning of April 19th when the Red Wings finally scored a run in the top of the 21st. They let out a sigh of relief, but perhaps they led their guard down too soon as the Sox once again tied the score in the bottom of the 21st. At 4:09 am, after 8 hours and 7 minutes, and 32 innings, the game was suspended to be completed at a later date. That later date would be June 23. The MLB had gone on strike two weeks prior, so even though it was a minor league game it was making national headlines. It had already broken the record by longest game by 1 minute and the record for most innings by 6, so baseball fans the nation over were excited to see what was in store for the remainder of this game. The sellout crowd packed the stadium to witness what was undoubtedly going to be an exciting day of baseball. All 18 minutes of it. When the game resumed that day in June, it saw Dave Koza hit a bases loaded single during the Paw Sox first at bat of the day, ending the game with a score of 3-2. Fans in attendance that day may have been disappointed by such a short outing, but they still got to witness the conclusion of the 33 inning, 8 hour and 25 minute longest professional baseball game of all time. ## Tennis Tennis scoring can seem a bit strange to those unfamiliar with the sport. Matches are played in either best of 3 or 5 sets, with each set being first to 6 games, and each game being first to four points. Rather than counting off points 1, 2, 3, 4, the points get their names from the French word for egg followed by the locations of the minute hand on a clock. A game also needs to be won by at least two points, and a set needs to won by two games unless the players are tied at six games each in which case the first to win the seventh game wins the match. Confused yet? We're not done. At the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, excluding the US Open, if a match went to the final set, that set had to be won by two games. A 7-6 final score was possible for the first four sets, but not for the final. So what does all of this mean? To start, it means to win a game and then a set, a player needs to show an actual advantage over the opponent. If players just traded points back and forth, whoever went first would win each game and that's not terribly exciting. Thus the requirement to win a game by two points is to demonstrate one player actually bested the other in that game. The same principle applies to games in a set, except with most games having a tiebreaker set at 6-6 in the interest of time. The other thing this means is that theoretically a single game can last forever if no player ever scores two points in a row, though that is extremely unlikely. What is much more likely is that, in a set that doesn't have a tiebreaker game, it can take an extraordinarily long time for a player to win two games in a row. Such is the tale of one match at the 2010 Wimbledon Championship, a match that one professional player claimed likely took six months off each of the men's careers. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut went head to head in the first round of the men's singles event on June 22, 2010. They completed four sets with scores of 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, and 7-6. The match then ended for the day on account of darkness. Sets three and four may have both ended with a tiebreaker game, but this was Wimbledon, so the final set needed someone to win by two games. The men resumed playing on June 23, and it was a hotly contested battle. As expected, they found themselves at a 6-6 score. Then 7-7. Then 20-20. When the game score reached 47-47 the scoreboard stopped working. It wasn't built to handle numbers larger than that, so IBM had to send in a team to repair it. Once again, a lack of sunlight caused the match to be halted and to resume for an unprecedented third day. On June 24, there would finally be a winner. Unlike when they Paw Sox resumed their legendary game, this final day was not going to be an 18 minute affair. The grueling match continued until finally the American Isner prevailed. The final score of the fifth set was 70-68. The entire match lasted for 11 hours and 5 minutes, with 8 hours and 11 minutes of that representing only the fifth set. Unsurprisingly, after such a strenuously match, Isner lost the second round of the tournament. Tennis's game structure allows for longer matches and players were used to having to push themselves to extreme lengths, but this match was a different beast entirely. The previous longest tennis match had lasted for 6 hours and 33 minutes, a record that was absolutely destroyed by over four and a half hours. Thanks to changes to tiebreakers structures, the 11 hour record will likely remain unbroken forever. ## Cricket For those viewers not from the United States, these times may not seem that impressive. Test and first-class cricket matches take 3-5 days with at least six hours of play each day, making an average game take 18-30 hours of play. Five day test matches are the standard for international play, but that wasn't always the case. There used to be "timeless test" matches that would be played until a team won, regardless of how long that took. Unfortunately, because the question "how does cricket work" is most commonly answered with the question "how long do have?" we're not going to be able to describe the matches and scoring. The most important thing to know is that cricket has a lot of strategic elements involving playing defensively and utilizing the clock to play for a draw when behind. The purpose of a timeless test may have just been to eliminate draws, but doing so fundamentally changes the strategy of the game so much that by removing the clock, it encourages games to last as long as possible. So how much longer can a game that would normally have been scheduled to last 30 hours possibly take? The simple answer is we will never know, but we know the longest attempt. In 1939, South Africa and England played a timeless test game in Durban, South Africa. The match began on March 3 and would last until March 14. Sundays were naturally the Lord's day, so play was scheduled for 10 of those 12 days, though the 8th scheduled day was canceled due to rain. This left 9 days for the match totaling 43 hours and 16 minutes of play. In that time, 1,981 runs were scored. England was 316 & 654 for 5 to South Africa's 530 & 481. So what on Earth do any of those numbers mean? They mean that after 9 days of play totaling over 43 hours, the "timeless test", the premier form of cricket that would not allow a match to end in a draw, ended in a draw. England's team only needed 42 more runs to win, but their boat back to England was leaving the following day so they offered the draw. This was not the first time a timeless test had to be declared a draw due to boat schedules, and it was the final time a timeless test would be attempted. Teams didn't have their own private ships, so they were bound to the schedules of cargo and passenger vessels. When a game can take an indeterminate amount of days or even weeks, scheduling travel can be extremely difficult, as can scheduling the matches themselves, and so timeless tests were abandoned. ## Chess You may be shocked to learn that the International Olympic Committee as well as more than 100 countries recognize chess as a sport. Not only is it incredibly competitive, but at high levels of play chess is also a great way to lose weight. Grandmaster chess players can burn as many as 6,000 calories per day in competitions just from the exception amount of brain activity, and also likely from a bit of stress as well. Their times can also put all other sports to shame as well. The longest individual game of chess took place in 1989 and lasted over 20 hours. That's pretty impressive for a one on one competition rather than a team sport, but the longest chess match of all time is on a completely different level. The 1984 Chess World Championship came down to a match between reigning champion Anatoly Karpov and 21 year old challenger Garry Kasparov. The match was scheduled to take place until either player won six games, and at first it looked like it was going to be an easy victory. Karpov established dominance early by winning games 3, 6, 7 and 9. It wasn't even ten games in and the champion was already leading 4-0. Reporters were likely already writing their coverage of the event, but Kasparov wasn't ready to give in. He dug deep and was able to battle Karpov to 17 more draws before finally losing again, leaving the score at 5-0. Karpov only needed one more win, but it was never going to come. After four more draws, Kasparov took game 32, finally winning his first game against the defending champion. This was followed by a series of 14 more draws, followed by Kasparov winning games 47 and 48 back to back. It was after the 48th game that the International Chess Federation's President took to the stage to make an important announcement. The match was to be abandoned. They had completed 48 games over the course of 5 months of play, and the match would be canceled for the health of the players. Neither player was happy with the announcement, least of all Kasparov. He had just won back to back games and appeared to have been playing better chess than the champion. However, though the timing of the announcement was suspicious at best as it meant Karpov would remain the champion by default, it was not entirely baseless. Kasparov may have understood the importance of remaining physically fit in competitive chess better than his opponent, as he still appeared to be in great shape and only playing better and better. On the other hand, Karpov had lost 22 pounds during the course of the match. Calling the match based on health concerns wasn't unreasonable, but it may have been inaccurate to claim it was for the health of both players. However, despite his physical condition and appearing to now be playing from a disadvantage, Karpov was vocal about his desire to finish the match as well. 1984 became the first and only year that the World Chess Championship did not have a declared winner. The following year the two men got to play a rematch in the finals with the new match structure: they would play 24 games with Karpov retaining his title if neither player had a lead after those 24 games. That year, Garry Kasparov became the youngest world chess champion in history. ## Key Takeaways - Yogi Berra's quote, 'it ain't over 'til it's over,' highlights baseball's potential for late-game comebacks. - The longest hockey game lasted nearly three hours, with Mud Bruneteau scoring the winning goal in the sixth overtime. - The longest MLB game by innings was 26, ending in a tie due to darkness, while the longest by time was 25 innings, lasting 8 hours and 6 minutes. - The longest tennis match lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes, with John Isner defeating Nicolas Mahut in the fifth set 70-68. - The longest chess match lasted 5 months with 48 games, ending without a declared winner due to health concerns. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is the longest hockey game in history? The longest hockey game in history was the 1936 Stanley Cup semi-finals between the Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Maroons, which lasted 6 overtime periods and ended with a score of 1-0. ### What is the longest baseball game by innings? The longest MLB game by innings was in 1920 between the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves, which went 26 innings. ### What is the longest baseball game by time? The longest MLB game by time was in 1984 between the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers, which lasted 8 hours and 6 minutes over 25 innings. ### What is the longest professional baseball game? The longest professional baseball game was between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings in 1981, which lasted 33 innings and 8 hours and 25 minutes. ### What is the longest tennis match in history? The longest tennis match in history was the 2010 Wimbledon Championship match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut, which lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes, with the final set lasting 8 hours and 11 minutes. ### What is a timeless test in cricket? A timeless test in cricket is a match that is played until a team wins, regardless of how long that takes, without a set time limit. ### What was the longest cricket match? The longest cricket match was the 1939 timeless test between South Africa and England, which lasted 9 days and 43 hours and 16 minutes of play. ### What is the longest individual game of chess? The longest individual game of chess took place in 1989 and lasted over 20 hours. ### What was the longest chess match in history? The longest chess match in history was the 1984 Chess World Championship between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov, which lasted 48 games over 5 months. ### Why was the 1984 Chess World Championship abandoned? The 1984 Chess World Championship was abandoned after 48 games due to health concerns for the players, particularly Anatoly Karpov, who had lost 22 pounds during the match. ## Sources - [Original Side Projects video: Longest Matches in Sports History](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px4mRbk_dCU) ## Related Coverage