From Wimbledon, a wonderful description of "the longest, strangest, darnedest tennis match ever played"

Tom Perrotta of The Wall Street Journal was there at Wimbledon to witness American John Isner and Nicolas Mahut of France slug it out over three days. He begins his report with a six-word intro. Then come the statistics. Followed by an account of the end of the game and a poser about what the marathon tussle means for tennis. Read the full piece here.

• AT SECOND REFERENCE: In our newspapers the policy is to use full names at first reference in a news report or feature, and the last name at second reference. The policy of WSJ is to use the salutation "Mr." (or "Miss" or "Ms." as the case may be) at the second reference. Hence these constructions in Perrotta's article:

On match point, Mr. Isner belted a backhand winner, dropped to the court and screamed. Moments later, he embraced a sullen Mr. Mahut, who hadn't lost a game on his serve since the ninth game of the first set of this first-round match. That was Tuesday.

• So what happens when Perrotta has to mention Isner and Mahut together? Take a look:

Messrs. Isner and Mahut did more than play for days and delete pages and pages of records. They put Wimbledon at the top of the sporting world (even with a certain soccer tournament going on). On Thursday, these two men were no less a story than Queen Elizabeth II, who hadn't paid a visit here in 33 years.