Forty years ago on this day, the tiebreak made its U.S. Open debut, for which we thank Jimmy Van Alen.

Van Alen - national champion of court tennis, an ancient, indoor cousin of the game more commonly played today - was also an inveterate innovator, who introduced electric scoreboards and night tennis to the grass court tournament at Newport Casino during the middle of the last century. He later founded the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport.

Seeking a sleeker, more action-packed scoring format, he tried to persuade players and fans to get behind his Van Alen Streamlined Scoring System, or VASS, which featured single point scoring to 21. The acronym was catchy but VASS never caught on.

Van Alen had better luck with the tiebreak, particularly after a 5-hour, 12-minute Wimbledon match between Pancho Gonzales and Charlie Pasarell, which ended with a 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9 win for Gonzales.

After a trial run in Newport, the system was introduced at the US Open in 1970. The 1970 tiebreak, however, was not the game-decider that we know today. It was first player to five points, with a maximum of nine points. The system did not go over well, and in 1975 the US Open debuted the first to seven, win by two tiebreak that is still in use today. The other Slams eventually came on board, but Wimbledon was last, holding out until 1979.

Martina Navratilova holds the unfortunate distinction of having lost two titles by deciding set tiebreaks (No other player has lost that way, and both times she won more games than her opponent).

While Navratilova may have lost two US Open titles to tiebreaks, they weren't noteable for their length. The longest tiebreak was in the third set between Goran Ivanisivec and Daniel Nestor in 1993. Ivanisivec eventually prevailed, 20-18.

Some critics might argue that the system adds an element of luck to a match - after all, even an inferior player can go on a hot streak for a few points. But it takes a lot more than a few points to reach a tiebreaker, and the player with the best winning record in breakers - 66 percent - is a guy named Roger Federer.

To date, the US Open is the only Slam to employ the tiebreak in the deciding set. One imagines that Alen, who died in 1991, would be proud - the excitement of an occasional Isner-Mahut spectacle notwithstanding,