Six foot nine inch American John Isner has burst into the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career, and has done so on a wave of clutch tie-break victories.
Throughout the 2011 US Open, John Isner has won a perfect six-for-six tie-breaks, including a 13-11 win in the first round, an 11-9 win in the third, and three breakers in his forth round victory over Gilles Simon.
When you’ve got the biggest serve in the game, this sort of clutch performance is hard to beat.
I first came across John Isner in Nashville back in April of 2004. I was living about 30 minutes outside of the city at the time, so decided to make the short drive to watch the SEC Championships being hosted at Vanderbilt University.
There was an abundent amount of talent on display, but the only thing that stood out about the 19-year-old Isner was his incredible height.
He was playing number two for the Georgia Bulldogs and looked like an awkward lanky player without any tangible talent. “I can beat that guy” I thought. In fact, I’m pretty sure I said it out loud. But then it dawned on me. The guy he was beating pretty solidly, I definitely could not beat. That was weird. If he’s beating him, and that guy would definitely beat me, maybe that tall guy could beat me.
He looked terrible, but kept beating guys who looked brilliant. If I had to bet on anyone at that tournament to turn pro, and then make the US Open quarter-finals, I would have taken John Isner absolute last.
But after a solid college career which saw Isner become Georgia’s all-time leader in singles and doubles wins, as well as earning All-American honors each of his four years and leading Georgia to the 2007 NCAA championship, the big serve and volleyer decided to try his luck on the ATP Tour – and by any measure, he’s done extremely well.
With three titles to his name, and ranking around 20 in the World, John Isner is set to become one of the most successful former college players of all time.
Two of the aforementioned titles occurred this summer, in July claiming the Newport title and a month later in Winston-Salem.
What’s remarkable about these two tournaments is that he won a perfect seven out of seven tie-breaks. Four in Newport and three at Winstom-Salem.
Without the resources or time to research fully, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Isner’s current tie-break form is unprecedented. Even Pete Sampras and Roger Federer lost occasional tie-breaks, and neither of them played tie-breaks as often as John Isner.
So now Isner faces his toughest opponent of the tournament so far in number four seed, Andy Murray. They’ve only played once before back in 2010 at the US Open, in which Murray won in straights, but if Isner can hold serve six times in a row, perhaps there’s a chance that Isner can go one step closer to the unimaginable.
I’ve never bet on Isner, and after horribly predicting Tsonga to take out Federer, I should choose my picks more carefully, but I will say this, if it goes to a fifth set tie-breaker, my money’s on the tall guy.