American twin brothers fail to regain tennis rally record

Angelo and Ettore Rossetti, two of tennis’ marathon men

Identical twins Angelo and Ettore Rossetti failed to regain the record for the longest tennis rally yesterday.

In 2008, the pair had set the Guinness World Record for the longest rally of 25,944 consecutive strokes without a miss in 14 hours and 31 minutes. It was later broken by the German pair of Frank and Dennis Fuhrmann in 2013, who reached a record rally of 50,970.

This time, the American pair did manage to better their previous record, as they went on to hit 30,579 strokes in a row, with Ettore hitting the net after 5 hours and 28 minutes.

Had they been successful, the pair had decided to give away the $1million prize money to Save the Children, a charity that works for the betterment of the lives and educations pf destitute children worldwide.

After the game Ettore, who is also director of social media for Save the Children said, "We are raising awareness and funds for those children who don't survive beyond age five around the world, and those who don't have the opportunity to learn here in the U.S."

"Any time we face a challenge that is so large, if you think about the gravity of the circumstance or the size of the challenge you'll likely be intimidated and fail," he continued. "If you think we have to hit 51,000 strokes, that's intimidating. However, we reframe our thinking to think can you hit one shot? The answer is absolutely so repeat that one shot 51,000 times. That's the way we're mentally preparing for this challenge, just one shot at a time."

The brothers used to practice 10 hours a day working towards achieving the record.