The Marathon Man Does It Again

After seeing a lot of success from Americans so far in the French Open, American fans had to believe that John Isner would defeat Tommy Haas today after he won an epic fourth set.  Unfortunately, this was not the case.  Tommy Haas ended up winning the fifth set, 10-8, which gave him the match.  But what made this instant classic possible?

John Isner is known as The Marathon Man because of his tendency to play very long matches in Grand Slams.  The one that comes to everybody's mind is the 70-68 fifth set with Nicholas Mahut at Wimbledon.  Then there was the epic with Nadal that Isner lost in five at Roland Garros, and again in Paris was a great five-setter with Paul-Henri Mathieu.  Despite all these marathon matches, Isner had never won after being down two sets to love, until Friday when he did so against his compatriot, Ryan Harrison.  Because of the rain messing up the French Open schedule, Isner had to come back the next day to play against Tommy Haas.

John Isner found himself in familiar territory, as he dropped the first two sets by the identical scores that he did to Ryan Harrison.  But in the third, Isner did not lie down as he got a break and ran away with the set.  In the fourth, it was on serve the whole way.  In the 12th game when Isner was attempting to force a tiebreak, he found himself down match point after match point.  After a few amazing serves, Isner had forced the tiebreak.  By the time the tiebreak had been won, Isner had saved 12 match points in total and was in prime position to win the match.  Early in the third, Isner got a break and looked like he was going to cruise into the Round of 16.

It was too good to be true, as Tommy Haas broke at 2-4.  From that point on, you could tell that it would be a classic John Isner marathon battle.  He only played hard in his service games and for one or two points in the return games in order to conserve energy.  The strategy did not pay off however, as Isner ended up getting broken at 8-all, and then went on to lose the set 10-8. 

John Isner will be missed, but expect big things from him in the grass court season.  American fans still have a plethora of women and doubles teams to root for as the French Open moves on.  But as for the discussion on whether or not there should be a fifth set tiebreak at all Grand Slams...that's for another day.

Photo: The Official Site of Roland Garros