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Florida Pro Diary: John Isner
Posted on May 2, 2008
Saddlebrook resident and ATP pro John Isner writes this month on his early-season physical problems, dropping in on NASCAR as an honored guest, and just coming up short of meetings with Andy Roddick and Roger Federer.
After the Australian Open I was scheduled to play a challenger in Hawaii, but upon my arrival there I noticed that my foot was extremely swollen. I tried to practice the next couple of days but it was a lost cause so my coach and I (Brandon Wagner) decided to return home back to Tampa. I got a MRI the next day and it revealed that I had a stress fracture on the third metatarsal of my left foot. I don't know how I got it, but the doc said that I had been playing on it for quite some time now which only made matters worse. After hearing the grim news, I took three weeks completely off the tennis court and gave my foot some rest.
Because of my injury I was forced to pull out of the Delray Beach tournament which really was a bummer because it is not often that you can drive to a tournament. However, I was able to play the next week in San Jose. I got through my first two matches, including my second career victory against Tommy Haas, in which I was able to save three match points in the second set, and then went on to win 6-3 in the third.
My next match was a different story where I was on the wrong end of a close encounter where I had five match points! I lost to Guillermo Garcia Lopez 7-6 in the third, 13-11 in the tiebreaker! It was an extremely close match. Had I won that match I would of played Andy Roddick in the semis. Oh well. Nonetheless, I was very pleased with my performance in San Jose.
Next on the schedule was Memphis where I was lucky enough to fly on Air Blake from San Jose to Memphis. Air Blake is of course the private jet that James Blake was nice enough to let me fly on. As most of you guys may know, James is the nicest guy around and flying privately with him was pretty neat. James and I are really close friends and I am always hanging out with him and practicing with him in Tampa, Fla., at Saddlebrook Golf and Tennis Resort. So anyways I was ready for another good result in Memphis.
However, lady luck was not on my side as I came down with the flu the night before my match. I barely ate anything and did not even warm up for match against Jurgen Melzer because I felt so bad! I ended up losing another close match where I had match points in. That is how it goes sometimes on the pro tour. Everybody is so tough and it is imperative that you capitalize on match point opportunities because if you don't these guys will all find a way to creep back in to the match.
After Memphis I was off to Las Vegas to compete in the Tennis Channel Open. During Vegas I was lucky enough to attend the NASCAR event that was in town. I had an all-access pass during the race and was in the pit with Kyle Petty, the driver of the #45 Wells Fargo car. That was real neat because he is a North Carolina boy just like me so it was really cool to hang out with him and his team that day.
I was in Vegas to play a tennis tournament and had to put the NASCAR fun behind me. I lost in the second round to Kevin Anderson who ended up making the finals of the tournament. That was a tough match to swallow because I had beaten him in our two previous meetings in college. He is a very good player though and has a great future ahead of him.
From there I went on to play in the Indian Wells Masters Series. I was really excited for this tournament because it was only my second-ever career Masters Series event. I had a very tough first-round match against Italian Simone Bolleli. I was fortunate enough to escape with a 7-6 in the third victory in a back and forth match. That was a real relief because it was my first-ever Masters Series win. I wasn't as fortunate in my next match against Nikolay Davydenko however. I lost 6-2, 7-6 but that loss was nothing to get too mad about because he is No. 4 in the world.
I didn't take it too hard because my beloved Georgia Bulldogs were competing in the SEC basketball tournament and had a miracle run to win the whole thing. They really came out of nowhere because they finished dead last in the SEC during the regular season but somehow managed to win the SEC tournament. That is the beauty of postseason play though!! They had to play two games in one day because of tornadoes that ripped through Atlanta. That was something that was never done before and they were able to beat two very good opponents and went on to beat Arkansas in the SEC finals. I was so pumped for the basketball Dawgs because UGA is historically a football school and seeing the b-ball team win a SEC Championship was something special. Their run unfortunately came to an end in the first round of the NCAA tournament when they lost to a very tough Xavier team. Nonetheless, it was still an amazing run.
After Indian Wells, I was fortunate enough to play in the Miami Masters Series event. I lost in the first round to the tough Frenchman Gael Monfils, however, in a tough three-set match. I was really ticked about this one because had I won I would have earned the opportunity to play against Roger Federer in the second round. Oh well. There will be plenty more tournaments! That is it for now!
John Isner
This story appears in the May 2008 issue of Play Tennis Florida magazine, www.PlayTennisFlorida.com
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