John Isner

@morgans36 If my maths are right you have taken huge unders at 155/1. You can easily get 250/1 out there, best of luck but he should be 1000/1

I just put $500 on Isner to win the French open to win $77,500. I know its a deserved long shot, but I do think this is pretty good value. We all know the French Open, pre Nadal prime was the grand slam most likely to have a shock winner, and I agree with Fish's comments below. Isner has great showings on clay, pushing Nadal to 5 sets last year, and pushing Novak to 5 sets on clay in Davis Cup. If Isner can get a decent draw, which is more likely as his ranking improves, he can get deep, where hedging at the very least will prove profitable. Nadal is more vulnerable than he has been in some time, Djokovic doesn't look quite as dominant, Murray whateva, Berdych stinks, Del Potro no good on clay...wide open my friends. John Isner, your 2012 French Open champ!

Fish on Isner:
"Yeah, he prefers slower surfaces. If you kinda break down his game, his serve can go through on anything. He can serve through the slowest of the slow on clay with any balls, but he has trouble returning on faster surfaces. That's why he doesn't particularly like grass, which is amazing to me. But it's whatever he likes. He has time on clay. His forehand is as big as anyone's forehand out there right now. When he's hitting it well he can play through the court. He can hit it by people. You saw that against Roger in Switzerland. So he can just blow through that stuff. That's how unique he is."

10 Things You May Not Know About John Isner

http://www.tennisnow.com/News/10-Things-You-May-Not-Know-About-John-Isner.aspx

Excerpt:

Mardy Fish, who as the highest-seeded American at the U.S. Open fell to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals, believes his friend John Isner can win the tournament. Isner has never reached the final eight of a major and will face France’s Gilles Simon on Tuesday. "Isner is playing as well as anyone," Fish said. "He's going to be tough here. I think he can win the tournament the way he's serving and playing. I don't think there's any question about that."

American John Isner after the No. 4 seed fired 14 aces in a 7-5, 6-3 win over Argentine Horacio Zeballos. Karlovic and Isner have split their previous two meetings, with Karlovic winning in 2008 at New Haven and Isner in 2010 at Memphis.

“He’s obviously feeling comfortable,” Isner said of Karlovic. “He’s won five matches now, pretty easily, too, so it’s going to be tough. The key to the match is for someone to try to get a break. If not, then whoever plays the big points better in the tie-break is going to win.”

World No. 29 Isner is through to the Houston quarter-finals for a second time, having also reached this stage in 2009.

“I actually enjoy playing on clay,” he said. “The first one is always tough. The footing and the movement is very different, and I’ve probably practiced on clay four or five times prior to this event and I got here late. I’m just glad to get through.”

Serena Williams and John Isner will team up for the United States in the Hopman Cup.

Interesting article on Big John's plans for next season:

Source: Foxsports
October 6, 2010

Andy Roddick may very well end up being the highest-ranked American male again when the season is concluded. But next year, the 28-year-old might have to step aside when John Isner, 25, takes giant strides into that place.

It took Roddick just four years to finish as his country's top player, and he did one better by finishing as the world's year-end No. 1 in 2003. Essentially, the No. 22-ranked Isner is on the same track. At the 2011 U.S. Open, Isner will have finished his fourth full year on tour, and by then, if he manages to stay healthy, the 6-foot-9 American should have been able to work the substantial kinks out of his game.

Plus, because he went to the University of Georgia for four years, he'll have a lot more experience than Roddick did dealing with the rough and tumble international world of tennis if he has a similar type of success.

Isner has improved to the point where it's also conceivable he'll be the first man over 6-foot-6 to win a major. Juan Martin Del Potro, who is 6-foot-6, showed that a tall man with ample power but without Rafa Nadal-like foot speed could survive a major without being tripped up when he won the 2009 U.S. Open.

While Del Potro is much more consistent from the backcourt than Isner and has a far better backhand, Isner has improved by leaps and bounds since he played his first U.S. Open in 2007 and took a set off then-No. 1 Roger Federer. Without a doubt, Isner still has limitations in his game. He'll never be quick nor fast, will always have problems scooping low volleys and has to find a way to add pop to his backhand, but his huge serve, forehand and improved net game give him three weapons that make him a legitimate contender.

Without question, if he doesn't improve his return of serve (and that means learning to read his foes’ serves and getting the ball back in play, not just powering outright return winners), Isner will remain a second-tier player. But it's a lot easier to gradually improve that facet of the game than it is to, say, develop a teeth-chattering serve that will rain down 113 aces in a match as Isner did in his record-breaking, 183-game victory over Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon.

Isner has never shied away from stating he wants to be an elite player, which is a necessary part of the recipe of being a top competitor — owning a lot of self-belief and not being afraid to show it.

"Most likely, Andy has the best chance to be the highest-ranked American at the end of the year,” Isner said. “But I don't feel any pressure. If I don't get to the top 10, I'm only letting myself down, really. That's the way I look at it."

As he showed at Wimbledon, Isner is a nails-tough competitor, and that's hard to teach. Ability-wise, he isn't much different or better than his close friend and doubles partner Sam Querrey, who is ranked a spot above him at No. 21, or even the veteran Mardy Fish, who is also ranked a few spots over him at No. 19.

But Isner appears to have the intangible that both are lacking at times — a huge heart and the absolute love of the battle, two qualities that have kept the 10th-ranked Roddick as his nation's top player for so long.

In producer Nitin Varma's well-constructed new player-biography series Tennisography on Tennis Channel, one of Isner's childhood coaches reveals that one day, an 11-year-old John looked him straight in the eye and, without a dreamy expression, declared one day he'd play Wimbledon.

John's two athletic older brothers made sure he wouldn't grow up to be soft, and rumbles among the three boys inside their North Carolina home weren't unusual. John laughingly recalls having his brothers chain him by the neck with a bicycle lock. But he took it in stride and notes his tight family bond made him a stronger and well-rounded person.

“You'll never meet a person who doesn't like John, because that person doesn't exist,” his brother Jordan said.

This season, Isner has won Auckland and reached the finals of Memphis, Belgrade and Atlanta. Had he not torn apart his ankle in Cincinnati, he likely would have been able to put on a much better showing at the U.S. Open than losing to eventual semifinalist Mikhail Youzhny in the third round.

His biggest career win still is his five-set upset of Roddick in the third round of the 2009 U.S. Open, but his hard-fought, four-set win over Gael Monfils in the third round at the 2010 Australian Open wasn't too shabby either.

But next year, he needs to start turning around his losses to the elite players like he suffered to Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych in 2010.

This season isn't over yet, and he could still make some noise. He has almost no points to defend for the rest of the year, and if he can put up big results at Beijing (where he's playing this week and is scheduled to face Philipp Kohlschreiber in the second round on Wednesday) and the Masters Series tournaments at Shanghai and Paris, he has an outside shot of qualifying for the year-end ATP World Finals in London.

In some ways, he has to look at the rest of 2010 as a way to develop himself into a truly feared player in 2011. His conditioning is already terrific, but he could locate his second serve better, improve the range with his forehand, keep moving ahead with his transition game and really grow to love the net, which is going to be the key for him if he ever hopes to win a major.

He has to be in charge of every match, and if he is, in 2011 he'll be leading the U.S. tennis troops.

“I've come a long, long way,” he said at Wimbledon. “I didn't think about going pro until my junior year in college. I didn't know what to expect. I told myself if I ever got to the top 100 at any point in my career, that would be an accomplishment. But now I'm top 20, and I can go further and get higher than that.”

http://twitter.com/JohnIsnerTennis

Ankle is worse than I thought. Need a miracle

hopefully won't be the case, after his great show at the Open last year, but there are doubts about Isner's participation, following the injury v Nalbandian

http://tennis.com/articles/templates/news.aspx?articleid=7078&zoneid=25