Izzy Legit? You bet.
In case you didn't catch it in today's paper, John Isner advanced to the quarterfinals of the SAP Open yesterday afternoon with a three-set win over No. 3 seed Tommy Haas. Here's the writeup in the local paper, the San Jose Mercury News. The first part is about Andy Roddick, skim down to get to the good stuff about Isner.
That's 25 more ranking points racked up by Isner, who - even if he doesn't get by Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the quarterfinals this afternoon - will be at least in the mid 90's in the world rankings next week. The higher he rises in those rankings, the more ATP events Isner qualifies to play, which means more opportunities to earn big money and big points and continue to rise in the rankings.
More important than those ranking points, or $11,500 he gets just for reaching the quarterfinals, is the air of legitimacy this gives to what Isner did last summer. Not to take anything away from Isner's dramatic run to the finals of the tournament in D.C. or his third-round appearance in the U.S. Open, but until the SAP Open he'd been unable to duplicate those results. Granted, there haven't been that many tournaments in between and Isner's been injured for much of the beginning of this season, but I'm pretty sure that there were some in the tennis world who wondered whether he might be a flash in the pan, a big server who got hot for a couple of weeks in August and September last year.
After Thursday's dramatic win over Haas, the number of skeptics about Isner's game have to be dwindling.
As for Isner's opponent today, Garcia-Lopez, I don't know much about him. He's a 24-year-old Spaniard who is currently ranked 75th in the world, so he's certainly not in the phenom category. Garcia-Lopez has, though, put together some good results so far this year. He reached the quarterfinals in Chennai and the third round of the Australian Open, where he lost to eventual finalist Jo Wilfred-Tsonga. That's helped push him up from No. 90 in the world to his current spot at No. 75.
Conclusion: He's solid, but beatable.
We'll have the outcome of Isner's match here and in the paper as soon as we find out about them.
Comments (1)
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IZZY LEGIT is a real life person. Please don't make fun of him. He's just a really good guy, with lots of Hollywood ambition. I know he's my twin brother! :-)
Posted on March 10, 2008 3:22 AM