Isner Beats Federer, Fish outlasts Wawrinka, US up 2-0

Written by: Tennischiro on 10th February 2012

Isner Beats Federer, Fish outlasts Wawrinka, US up 2-0

epa03096788 US Davis Cup team player John Isner returns the ball during his team's training session in the Forum Arena in Fribourg, Switzerland, 08 February 2012. Switzerland will face the USA in the Davis Cup World Group first round. EPA/JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT |

I got up a little late this morning and went to check the progress of the Davis Cup. First I signed on to the Davis Cup site to see the progress of the matches around the world. BTW, the Davis Cup site is great for giving you up to date, live statistics of all the matches around the world. And that’s free as well as a lot of feature video clips of past matches and current news of the Davis Cup and Fed Cup. At the same time, I found a few free streams I could follow on LSHunter.com to see a little more of what was going on. If you don’t have the Tennis Channel and don’t want to put out the $10 for a weekend pass to the video of the ITF site, this is a great option. Just be sure to switch to full screen after the initial 30 second commercial. Don’t hit any of the many options you get offered right away; at the end of the 30 seconds, go to fullscreen and you’ll have pretty good video coverage of your match. Otherwise, you are constantly interrupted by commercials.

I found that I had slept through an epic 9-7 in the fifth victory for Mardy Fish over Stan Wawrinka on indoor red clay in Switzerland. That should be a great one to catch on tape delay on the Tennis Channel if you have that option. But it appeared that Federer was moving routinely to even the score as he was about to serve out the first set, 6-4. Nice effort for Isner, I was thinking, as he kept the set close.

Then they moved into the second set and I realized John was getting his teeth into this match and looked really comfortable on the red clay. His serve and his aggressive shots are so big that they are still good on the slower surface, but the normal shots of his opponents give him just the additional time he needs to set up a little better. In addition, it appears he really has been working to improve his agility and fitness and was going to make this a tough match for Federer. Well, the execs at LSHunter.com didn’t think so, and my video stream switched to the Italy-Czech Republic match.

So, I went ahead and committed my $10 to the ITF to subscribe to their Davis Cup stream for the weekend…and I’m glad I did. I’ve got to go to work soon, but I would have the choice of watching all 8 of the first round World Group Davis Cup matches. Depending on how many “dead rubbers” get played out, that could be as many as 40 different matches through the weekend. Unfortunately, you only get to watch them live, but that’s a lot of tennis around the world. I’ve always felt the networks were missing the boat not presenting the Davis Cup like CBS presents March Madness with the NCAA basketball championships, switching from one “tie” to another one around the world as these matches unfold in all the different time zones.

Perhaps a little vocabulary/jargon review is in order for a few of you who may not be totally familiar with Davis Cup terminology. First of all the World Group is the top tier of Davis Cup competition starting with the top 16 teams in the world. They play an elimination tournament with 4 rounds scheduled through the year. Each team match is a “tie”. The winners of the first round tie advance to the quarterfinals, then semifinals and finals. Each of these “ties” is a best of 5 match event with the first team to win 3 matches winning the “tie”. Those matches are called “rubbers”. A live “rubber” is one played with neither team having won 3 matches/rubbers; i.e., the outcome of the competition is still to be determined. Obviously, there is a lot more pressure playing for your country in a “live rubber” as opposed to a “dead rubber”. The live rubbers are all best of 5 sets with no tie-breaks in the 5th set. The other element that you need to understand is that the loser of the 1st round match falls back into the “Relegation” round. That is, to get back into the World Group again next year, they will have to win a challenge tie against a team coming up from Group I. Davis Cup started as a match between Great Britain and the United States in 1900, playing for a cup donated by Dwight Davis. In 2011, 130 nations competed in the various tiers of Davis Cup to finally award the championship to Spain at the end of last year.

Finally, to get a grip on the importance and pressure of the situation, imagine when you step up to serve for a game, the umpire does not announce “Advantage, Joe Blow”; he says, “Advantage, United States”. It’s a whole different kind of pressure and it is an important part of a player’s legacy to say he has participated successfully in Davis Cup. It’s the one title Federer does not have!

Excuse me, I meant to make this short, but I know there are many of you who just don’t understand all the hoopla about Davis Cup, “tie’s” and “live rubbers”. In any case, John Isner proceeded to play the match of his life. He broke once in the second set to even the match at a set apiece. Federer was only able to break Isner once in 12 chances. John fought off a key double break chance Federer had early in the third set and played a solid tie-breaker to go up 2 sets to 1.

In the fourth set they started off routinely and it looked like Federer might get his mojo back. At 2-2, Isner went down 0-40 on a couple of loose forehands. But he came back to win that game and then immediately break and go up 4-2. I’m thinking, Isner is hearing “4-2, United States” and I swear I could see his adrenalin kick in. His heart had to be absolutely pounding in his chest. He knows how important this win is to the team, much less to his career. He got it to 4-2, 40-0 before he shanked a forehand. I’m thinking, “Can he control his emotions and stay in the moment?”. Isner served an ace to go up 5-2 in the fourth.

One of the comments from the British commentator for the IFT stream at this point says a lot: Isner has to have the “biggest 1-2 punch in the game” with his serve and forehand. It absolutely seemed like a gun going off when he hit that big serve. I saw Federer trying to return from the ad court above his shoulders with his feet almost a yard outside of the doubles sideline which put the ball another 5 feet beyond that. On a regular 60′ wide court, Federer would have literally been scrapping the return off the side fence; not to mention Isner regularly serves second serves up in the teens and more as well as getting the ball above the opponents shoulders. Very tough!

So Federer steps up to serve the 2-5 game and they split the first two points. It looks like this will be a battle. Then Isner simply hit three return of serve winners in a row. It was an amazing feat for the big man. Take a look at the statistics from the match at DavisCup.com and you will see how completely he outplayed the greatest player of all time. Federer certainly didn’t play his best, but that was largely because Isner never gave him a chance to do so. Davis Cup captain Jim Courier had a telling comment after the match. He said you cannot allow an artist like Federer “to have a canvass to work with”. Isner didn’t allow Federer to play and now the US is up 2-0.

10sChiro

Topics: Davis Cup 2012, John Isner, Roger Federer