After winning a tiebreaker 19-17 on the way to reaching Wimbledon’s third round for the first time, John Isner put it succinctly: “I’m no stranger to matches like this.”
Sure isn’t.
The man who won the longest tennis match in history served 32 aces to beat 62nd-ranked Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 7-6 (19-17) 7-6 (7-3) 7-5 on Thursday.
“That tiebreaker was something else,” said ninth-seeded Isner, the only American man remaining of 10 in the field. “Fortunately, I won.”
Only one men’s singles tiebreaker at Wimbledon contained more points than the 36 played by Isner and Nieminen: Bjorn Borg won one 20-18 in 1973.
Isner fought off five set points for Nieminen in that tiebreaker. And Isner finally converted his eighth set point when Nieminen sent a forehand wide.
“For whatever reason, when I’m in that situation, I always have a lot of adrenaline, and I’m always serving my best,” said Isner, who beat Nicolas Mahut 70-68 in the fifth set of an 11-hour match over three days in Wimbledon’s opening round in 2010.
“The name of the game for me is just taking care of the two points on my serve. Put the pressure back on my opponent – that’s what I did.”
Pounding serves at up to 223km/h, Isner never faced a break point against Nieminen and, while he only was able to convert one of seven chances of his own, that was enough. It came near the end, making it 6-5 in the third set.
“I get in a lot of matches where it just becomes a hold-fest,” said Isner, “which is fine, but it’s not ideal.”
Last year at Wimbledon, Isner quit after only two games in the second round because of a knee injury.
His 2013 departure was part of a historically poor performance by US men: they all were gone before the third round, the first time that had happened since 1912, when none entered the tournament.
“At least,” he said, “there’s one guy past the second round.”
Just him, though. The three other American men in action on Thursday lost. Sam Querrey was beaten 14-12 in the fifth set by French No.14 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a rain-disrupted match. Jack Sock went out in straight sets against Canadian No.8 Milos Raonic and Denis Kudla did the same against Japanese No.10 Kei Nishikori.
Led by five-time champion and top-seeded Serena Williams and sister Venus, also a five-time winner at Wimbledon, the US women are faring better, with five already into the third round.
Two won their second-round matches on Thursday: Madison Keys beat Czech 31st seed Klara Koukalova and Alison Riske eliminated Italy’s Camila Giorgi.