By Charles Bricker
The thermometer said 93 degrees, which probably meant it was about 193 on the asphalt stadium court, where John “Marathon Man” Isner looked anything but indefatigable on one extremely hot and humid Saturday afternoon at the new Atlanta Tennis Championships.
How hot was it? No fried egg jokes, please. But it was sapping enough that on the penultimate point of this Isner semifinal win over Kevin Anderson, Big John hauled his 6-foot-9 body over to the short wall that separates the court from the sideline and sat while Anderson ran an unsuccessful challenge on the big screen.
When the animated replay showed Anderson’s shot a hair wide, Isner didn’t look anxious to get off that wall. On the next point, he put a wrap on this 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-3 win that would send him off for a long, cold shower, several gulps of rehydration liquid and back to an air conditioned hotel room.
Isner caught a lot of well-deserved publicity for winning an 11-hour, three-day match against Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon. But that was London, with the temperature a bit over 80 tops and with little humidity. It also was a first-round match.
Isner was playing his third match of the week in Atlanta and it has been like this all week — stiflingly hot and oppressively humid. And they weren’t on that nice, cushy grass at Wimbledon. They were on a court that was just soaking up the sun, and who knows what kind of heat was rising through these guys’ shoes for more than two hours.
Isner showed at Wimbledon that he was in one kind of good fitness. Now he’s going to have to show he’s into another kind. This heat not only dehydrates you, but works on your head. He can use a few weeks off after this before he goes to Toronto for the Aug. 9 start of the Rogers Cup ATP 1000.
As this semifinal headed down the backstretch, thunder began jolting the Atlanta area, and that usually means lightning right behind it, so Isner was happy to get this one done before they ushered the players off the court as a safety measure.
The only relief from the heat were the gathering clouds. “Yeah,” cracked Isner. “I was waiting for the clouds all afternoon.”
This was not an elegant match, outside of a few tense moments in the tiebreak. Quality return of serve was not there for either player, and it was made worse but the fatigue that set in for both in the third set.
Isner had 20 aces, Anderson 14. Isner faced seven break points and defended all of them. Isner was 78-31 on service points and Anderson 58-18. As long as Isner can serve like this, and his serve picks up even more pace in these hot conditions, he’s a threat to go the distance at the U.S. Open. But he has GOT to be ready for some heat in New York as well. Dealing with this weather should be a top off-court training goal for him this summer.
For Anderson, of South Africa, it was another step forward in a career that looked quite promising when he upset No. 3-ranked Novak Djokovic at Key Biscayne in March of 2008. That win got him a lot more name recognition that he had while starring at the University of Illinois. A man who has a hard time keeping on weight, he was not to have a meteoric rise up the rankings with that win. He fell back, got heavily into the Challenger circuit last year and early this year, and, with three wins in Atlanta, he’s going to push into perhaps the low 80s when the new rankings come out Monday.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com
