University of Georgia Athletics
Isner Falls In Tight Atlanta Final
August 07, 2016 | Men's Tennis
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
ATLANTA — John Isner said something telling Tuesday, when talking about what playing four years of tennis at Georgia meant for him. College, he said, is "where you learn to become a great competitor."
Isner showed that competitiveness on a hot and super-humid Sunday afternoon in downtown Atlanta. Going for a fourth straight BB&T Atlanta Open championship, the 17th-ranked former Bulldog great clearly didn't have his best game and struggled with the conditions and his movement.
Still, he made No. 18 Nick Kyrgios work and work to end Isner's 15-match win streak on the Atlantic Station stadium court. Both sets went to tiebreakers and Kyrgios prevailed 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4).
How tough was it out there Sunday afternoon? Isner sweated so much just during the five-minute warmup that he soaked the wristband on his right wrist and had to change it before the match began.
"In the first set my legs weren't really underneath me," said Isner, who has 10 career ATP Tour titles and has now been a runner-up 11 times. "It was pretty hot and it was taking it's toll on me. I got a second wind in the second set and I felt like I put myself in position to win that set ... (but) I didn't quite come up too clutch there at the end of the second set."
As always, the 6-foot-10 Isner's serve was his dominant weapon. He was credited with 18 aces and 91 percent of his first-serve points. Neither player broke serve, with Kyrgios failing on his only two chances and Isner going 0-for-4.
Three of Isner's break chances came in Kyrgios' first service game, when the 20-year-old Australian made an error and double faulted to make it 0-30. Isner then cracked a return deep at Kyrgios' feet that led to a miss, putting the seven-time All-American at Georgia up 0-40. But Isner couldn't convert any of them as Kyrgios picked up his game and escaped the jam.
"I think him holding that first game was very important," Isner said. "It definitely settled him down. If I go up 2-0 there's a good chance that set's over."
After Kyrgios survived that scare the two held serve until 6-all, where Kyrgios jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the tiebreaker and won it 7-3. The second set was mostly a carbon copy of the first, with a lot of short points, big serves and another tiebreaker.
In the second set tiebreaker, Isner made an error to get behind 1-2, a mini-break, but then Kyrgios missed two routine backhands on his serve to give the mini-break to Isner. Serving a 3-2, Isner double faulted and missed a volley long to put Kyrgios in command for good.
"I knew that I had to come up with some special stuff today and I thought I did," Kyrgios said.
The final was a disappointment for Isner, but he said he felt good overall about the event, which included his first tournament final since winning in Atlanta last year. Sunday's final in Atlanta was Isner's sixth in the past seven years.
"It's tough to make a final — guys are good out there," he said. "It's definitely an encouraging week. There were some things today that reared their ugly head that have happened all year, and I'm not playing worse. The margins in my matches are pretty small sometimes and I guess what happened today and what's happened this year can very easily happen. ...
"Of course I wanted to win this again, I mean I love this tournament, but I'm not too discouraged. I know I'm not far away, I've just got to fix a few things here or there and these close matches will start going my way."
Isner often benefits from a pro-Georgia and pro-Isner crowd in Atlanta, but the 2,500 or so in attendance were largely quiet during the match. The conditions may have had something to do with that; it's hard to applaud when you're waving a paddle fan in front of your face throughout the match.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
