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by Pete Bodo
A few weeks ago, I was down at the Saddlebrook resort near Tampa, visiting with John Isner. I watched him practice one afternoon with another promising American tower-of-power, 18-year old Alex Domijan. At 6-9, Isner is just two inches taller than Domijan, so I was glad to see that they would work out on green Har-Tru. I might actually get to see them hit a few forehands and backhands, instead of pelting each other with the monstrous serves both lads are capable of raining down.
It was amusing to watch them smacking balls, like two giant kittens batting around pieces of popcorn. The racket looked small in their hands; they swung effortlessly, almost leisurely, and the balls flew fast and hard. Domijan was holding his own; after he ended one service game with a winner, Isner remarked, "If there were four corners in that service box you would have hit them all." Isner squeaked by in the first set, but serving at 4-5 in the second he made an unforced backhand error off a Domijan service return and found himself down 15-40—double set point.
Craig Boynton, Isner's coach since the beginning of 2009, whispered to me: "When someone beats John in a practice match, I sometimes tell him, 'Don't get any ideas here. It's not like you took it to the next level or anything.' John is about the worst practice player, ever. It's when the lights go on that John's like, 'Okay, now it's time to play."
Isner then hit an ace. On the next point, he hit an unreturnable serve that Domijan barely got a stick on. The frustrated youngster stiffened up and hopped in place, fists clenched at his side. It was a subtle, highly controlled reaction, but one to which players far more expert than the novice Domijan are also prone to when they play Isner. Facing two points that might make it a set apiece, Domijan was pushed aside, allowed to have no say in his fate. From deuce, Isner went on to hold and he soon won the second set.
The anecdote illustrates two of Isner's outstanding qualities: that serve, with which he can pull any number of chestnuts out of any fire, and his competitive aplomb. Between them, the latter is more impressive. Guys who can dial a 130 m.p.h. serve are a dime a dozen. But a guy who can crack that huge serve under duress, and flick the switch activating his A-game when, as Boynton said, "the lights go on," are a rarity.
In yesterday's historic win—a trophy presentation after a first-round match, at Wimbledon, no less, who woulda thunk it?—Isner wrote his name in the tennis books, on the plus side of the ledger, relying on those two characteristics. And he did it at the right place and time. I watched the match streaming online, so I don't know what Patrick McEnroe, Brad Gilbert, and their fellow television heavyweights at ESPN, the BBC, Eurosport and other outlets said. But one aspect of the performance Isner put on points toward his exceptional temperament for the game. Before yesterday, he was 0-1 at Wimbledon, and he didn't even play there in 2009 (thanks to a case of mononucleosis). I'd say the ice is broken.