Posts tagged Isner

JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — The crowd at the final match of the Atlanta Tennis Championships on Sunday was decidedly Georgia Bulldog, meaning the crowd was clearly behind local favorite and former UGA star, John Isner. It was Mardy Fish, however, who survived the scorching heat and the hostile crowd to win his second straight ATP tournament, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (4).

It took three sets and two hours and 45 minutes for Fish to finish off Isner at the first event in the U.S. Open Series event. But it’s taken a lot longer for Fish to get into the kind of shape it takes to be so successful on tour.

“Obviously we put in the work and this is what we wanted to do,” said Fish. “This is where we wanted to be. These are the types of matches we targeted in October when we were rehabbing with the knee. That seems like a long time ago. It feels great.”

Now that Fish is near the top of his game, he’s able to play events and believe that he can beat anyone who opposes him. This week he beat the ninth-ranked player in the world, Andy Roddick, and then No. 19 Isner. He’ll get similar competition throughout the rest of the hard court season, but Fish is fine with that.

“I do feel like I can play with anyone,” said Fish. “It’s a confidence thing, that helps a lot. If you feel like you’re going to walk out there not thinking you have much of a chance, what’s the point? You’re just playing, trying to make quarterfinals in tournaments and stuff like that. That’s not why we worked hard to get where we are.”

The heat was ‘brutal again,’ to use a commonly uttered phrase from Isner. The temperatures were in the upper-90s with the sun baking the on-court temperatures above 100 degrees.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played in conditions this hot and this humid,” said Isner. “It’s rough like this.”

The first hour was the hottest, according to Isner, and that’s the set he won. But gutting out that first set may have zapped his power for the final two. His first serve percentage dropped slightly between the first set and the final two. His return game suffered more. In the first set Isner returned 33 percent of Fish’s first serves. In the second and third sets that figure dropped to below 16 percent.

Some of that drop in the level of Isner’s return game came from mishits, as he lost the ability to focus at normal levels. More still seemed to come from his apparent energy conservation.

To get through a marathon match like that — and Isner should be able to write the book on marathon matches — you have to find ways to conserve energy. If Isner didn’t immediately jump out to a lead in Fish’s service games, he would either take chances to end points early, causing mishits or over-hitting. It’s just a fact of life.

“It’s the third final this year, that arguably, I probably could have won,” said Isner. “I lost two finals earlier this year and was up in both of them. In one I was serving on match point. This one obviously could have gone either way, it’s disappointing. I’ve played four finals this year and I’ve lost my last three, all in three sets. That’s hard to swallow but it hasn’t stopped me from progressing.”

Isner says that he’ll definitely take something away from the Atlanta tournament, and he’ll continue putting himself in the same position of playing in the finals at tournaments.

With the match tied at two sets apiece, Fish opened up the third set and held serve. Isner did the same and Fish followed suit to make the score 2-1, Fish.

In the next game Isner tried an ill-conceived drop shot and missed badly. Fish converted his second break opportunity of the match and went up 3-1. The match seemed to be in Fishes hands, but fought back hard on Fishes serve to get the break back. The two changed over at 3-2, Fish and the crowd got loud.

There was no doubt that the crowd was very pro-Isner. All day the random ‘Go Dawgs’ chant would be shouted. But while the players sat at changeover, what started with a small group turned into a scaled-down version of football in the south on Saturdays. By the time the players got back to their respective baselines, most of the crowd was involved in a back-and-forth chant. One side would scream ‘Georgia’ with the other ‘Bulldogs’.

“Breaking back, in general, gave me some juice,” Isner said. “The crowd, for the most part, was probably on my side and that kind of helped. it spurred me on.”

While ‘probably’ is an understatement in regard to crowd support, Isner also thinks his improved serving gave him the ability to get back in the match and take it to a third-set tiebreaker.

“I started serving better after that 3-1 game,” Isner said. “I held all the way through.”

Once the match made it to the third-set tiebreaker, there were two schools of thought as to who had the advantage. Maybe Fish was set up to win because of the level of fatigue plaguing Isner. Or possibly Isner, who is incredibly tough to beat in tiebreakers had the upper hand.

Fish started out serving, which was somewhat to his advantage. He won that first point and then took both of the points on Isners serve to go up 3-0.

“I knew that the way that I was feeling – the way we were both feeling – a good start in the tiebreaker was going to be huge,” Fish said. “I was lucky enough to get the first two points off his serve, which doesn’t happen too often.”

Fish took his next service point to go up 4-0 but Isner fought back. He scored the next two points before having some trouble with Fishes serves.

“He played a good point to go 4-1,” Fish said. “But later he missed two second serve returns to go 4-3 and another to make it 6-3. I think that was probably the turning point there of the tiebreaker.”

Isner later said that the two returns were ‘mishits’, but wouldn’t elaborate as to whether it was because of fatigue or Fish’s ability to start off second-serve points extremely well. Two points after the second missed return, Fish put the match to rest.

“He’s one of the toughest outs in a tiebreaker that we have out here,” said Fish. “It’s pretty satisfying to beat him at that.”

The win gives Fish his fifth career ATP tour title and the second this year and with his win last week in Newport, it’s his second consecutive. Fish feels like he’s playing the best tennis of his career..

“As top as I’ve ever been,” said Fish when asked if he was at the top of his game. “I’ve never won two tournaments in the same year, I’ve never won two tournaments in a row and on the ATP tour I’ve never won 10 matches in a row. It’s probably as good as it’s been.”

Fish can take home the satisfaction of knowing he’s playing incredible tennis right now. He can also take home $95,845 in prize money and more important 250 points toward his ranking. He’ll also jump out to an early lead in the U.S. Open Series standings with 70 points for winning the first step of six on the way to the U.S. Open.

But Fish won’t actually be going home. He’s headed to Los Angeles to play in the Farmer’s Classic, which starts on July 26.