Thursday, May 31, 2012

Isner Loses in 2nd Round of French Open

John Isner fell to Paul Henri-Mathieu in another epic grand slam five set match 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 18-16. I really hate it when I'm right. Here's what I said last night:
This will not be easy, but it's a match Isner should win. I don't think we'll see as routine an outing as John had in round 1. In fact, this could be one of those long matches John has become known for.
I still stand by all of that. This is a match that Isner should have won. He had 98 unforced errors. 98! Granted, 45 came in the 5th set which was 34 games long (that's more games than the first three sets combined). John just didn't have his A game in the 2nd or 3rd set. He got back into a groove in the 4th. In the 5th, Mathieu had the huge advantage of serving first in the fifth set of a grand slam. It's so hard to constantly be playing from behind when you have to win by two.

This probably sounds like sour grapes at the moment, but I think it's time for all grand slams to play a tiebreaker in the 5th like the US Open does. I'm not alone here either. What really concerns me for John is that the marathon Wimbledon match a few years ago pretty much ruined the rest of his year. Now, that match was much longer and spanned three days. So while this match won't take the same toll, it will still be a significant one. I'd like to see John get some rest and play less tournaments in the hard court season. Specifically, I'd like to see him skip the Winston-Salem tournament right before the US Open, but there is no way he will skip a tournament that close to his home town. Hopefully he will take some measures to rest up and get his body right.

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