John McEnroe: "The Greatest Match Ever I've Ever Seen..."

Rafael Nadal seemingly had won the 2008 Wiimbledon championship at three different moments during the epic nearly 5 hour match against Roger Federer. After two rain delays, two tiebreaker sets, and a final set sudden death where both he and Roger just sucked the life out of each other, it appeared at one point this match would never end — and that wouldn't have been a bad thing. It was the longest Wimbledon match in history and it's tough to imagine a better one will ever be played between two rivals at the top of their game.

Wimbledon officials were only going to allow it to go until 9:30 at night and as the last flickers of sunlight began to disappear at Centre Court, Rafael Nadal finally broke through and beat Federer 9-7 to win his first Wimbledon championship.

Dylan Stableford, resident tennis deuce-dropper at Deadspin, volunteered to live blog it this morning. But with the temperamental programming issues Gawker IT's experienced the past week, it didn't seem feasible and would've probably been more trouble than it was worth. Also, if he had live-blogged this event, it would've been at least 11,000 words.

Unfortunately, highlights won't do this Wimbleldon justice. If you watched it live, you should feel fortunate that you witnessed a match that will be talked about for years to come.

See you tomorrow.

Federer/Nadal Liveblog [Yahoo! Euro]

Nadal beats Federer in grueling five-set final [Independent UK]

Nadal Dethrones Federer In Classic Battle [AP]

Send an email to A.J. Daulerio, the author of this post, at ajd@deadspin.com.

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