Tennis World
Marathon Man Isner Leads Way in Atlanta
Just a day after saying he wants to put his record-breaking Wimbledon match behind him, John Isner once again proved that he is the premier marathon man on the Tour by carving out an epic win against Gilles Muller. The match featured 62 aces and only one break of serve, which Muller managed in the first set to clinch it 6-4. The next two sets were both tie-breaks that went Isner’s way, and after more than two and a half hours the big American finally closed the match out. “I hadn’t seen a live ball in quite some time and Gilles was never going to give me rhythm with his lefty serve,” Isner said after the match. “I felt I was shedding the rust off in the second and third sets. I will only keep getting better. As a tennis player you need a lot of matches to play your best. This was one of the biggest wins of the year. I wanted to get matches under my belt before D.C. and the two Masters 1000s.”
It was a good day for Americans, as only players from the United States managed to win matches on Wednesday. Taylor Dent saw off Heracio Zeballos 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 and Michael Russell managed to overcome Rainer Schuettler 1-6, 6-2, 7-5. Mardy Fish also won his match in straight sets to give the local boys a clean sweep of the day’s matches.
Over in Hamburg the seeds had another horrible day, with five of them going by the wayside. The biggest upset of the day came when Denis Istomin knocked out Nicolas Almagro 7-6, 7-6. Julien Reister and Philipp Kohlschreiber kept local hopes alive by going through to the next round, but Philipp Petzscner and Michael Berrer both fell.
