Thank You, John Isner
I’m thanking Mr. Isner for many different reasons. First and foremost, he provided energy and excitement for a tournament that would have been quite lackluster without him. Secondly, thank you for supporting my blog from last week regarding U.S. Men’s tennis. For those of you who aren’t familiar with his story, I’ll provide you with a short recap. John recently graduated from University of Georgia with a plethora of tennis accolades. At the beginning of the summer, John was ranked #839. Then he won a future level event, and then a challenger a couple of weeks later raising his ranking to the mid 400’s. Then, Fernando Gonzalez pulled out of the Legg Mason, opening up a wild card spot that was granted to John. To say that John took full advantage of this wild card would be the understatement of the century (besides saying that Kevin Garnett was a decent pickup for the Celtics, but as always, I digress).
John won five matches, on five consecutive days no less, in third set tiebreakers. And it’s not as if Isner didn’t beat anyone along the way. He beat, in order – Tim Henman, Benjamin Becker, Wayne Odesnick, Tommy Haas & finally Gael Monfils, before losing to Andy Roddick 6-4, 7-6 in the finals. I have to be honest, I followed the results throughout the week and was happy for the 6′10 behemoth, and was happy for him, but chalked it up basically as a fluke. So I decided to tune into the Tennis Channel for his match against Monfils to see what exactly we had here.
And we have a player, to be sure. I’m in no way making an argument that Isner will compete for Grand Slams or be a top 15 guy, but bottom line is this kid should stick around for awhile. As witnessed against Monfils, and from what I understand, the rest of his matches, he will struggle to break serve, doesn’t have the best consistency or mobility (actually, both his consistency and mobility were pretty awful), and if his serve is off he will have a tough time winning matches. But he certainly has the heart, proved when Monfils finally broke him at 5-5 in the 3rd set, only to have Isner step up and break him back to force the third set breaker; not to mention an absolute cannon of a serve. If he learns to attack people’s second serve more (once he gets on the defensive, he is more than likely going to lose the point) he will start putting more pressure on opponents, and start to break a bit more often. Will he be the future savior of U.S. Men’s tennis? No. Will he be an exciting player to watch and root for in the coming years? Absolutely.
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US Open Series Standings.
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August 6th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I’m not sure I saw Isner’s mobility as pretty awful. He’s big and long and gangly and certainly doesn’t move like Venus Williams, but he’s explosive when moving forward (he only has to take two steps to get to the service line) and that gave him the opportunity to hit some pretty easy volleys.
Given his college record and what he demonstrated in DC, he knows how to win. Five straight matches 76 in the third is a remarkable achievement for any player at any level. Means he’s one tough cookie. That will take him far.
And no one will want to see him early in the draw on a fast surface.
He’s already defeated a top 10 player and made the finals of an ATP event. The same can’t be said for Sam Querrey or Donald Young, or any other up and comer in American tennis.
He has the potential to do quite well.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Craig, you are correct. As a person with a net game most would describe as “not good,” I typically view movement only as side to side, and never really look at up and back. Isner certainly closes the net with as much “explosivneness” as anyone. Another dog in the fight could also push Querrey and Young to raise their games, just as our 90’s guys pushed off each other, so could these newbies.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Jeremy i think you sell yourself short with your net game, i would use the words smoothly efficient…
The big difference that I’ve seen with Querrey and Isners’ games is that Querrey naturally looks like he wants to be a baseliner and has the ability to do so (although mobility is the question)…Isner seemed to lack a BH, although he could slap around some pretty big forehands..I didnt get to see him volley that much in the match, but what i did see wasnt all that impressive (not to say he’s a bad volleyer, but i didnt see anything to make me think he could make a tough first volley and finish off the point consistenly) and obviously his serve is huge.
It seems like both of these guys (as well as most Americans these days on the tour) are fitting the mold of they’re going to be dangerous in the second half of the season (Grass and faster Hard Court portion) and wont make much noise at any other time…
August 13th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
donner you’re nuts (congrats on the job by the way). isner’s bh seemed pretty consistent to me, and he has VERY good touch around the net for a big guy. Wish he would play more aggressively on his return games. From what I’ve seen, isner is MUCH more intelligent and knows how to use his game a little better than querrey at this point which makes sense as i think he is 3 years older. i’ve heard querrey say that “all he does his try to hit the ball as hard as he can.” although it is simple, and kind of humorous, that mentality ain’t gonna consistently win you matches on the highest level.