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(We're tracking John Isner's match through the mind-numbing Slam Tracker, allowing you to be more productive at work. The most recent updates are at the top of the page. Scroll down to the bottom for the beginning of this blog post.)

FINAL UPDATE:
Well Wimbledon 2008 is over for John Isner. He fell in four very close sets to Ernests Gulbis, 7-5, 7-5, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (6).

So what does this all mean?

First, clearly this is disappointing for Isner. Going back to the French Open, he's now lost in the first round in three of his four tournaments. And the grass court season that looked promising for Isner has instead ended with a 1-3 record.

However (and this is going to be a big however), let me bring back Isner fans from off the ledge. It's way too early to dismiss what Isner did last summer, particularly at the Legg Mason, as a flash in the pan.

One, the draws have not been kind. Radek Stepanek in Nottingham, Gulbis (who Gilbert predicted would be top 16 by the end of the year) at Wimbledon.

Two, I expect Isner's results to pick up when he gets back to the hard courts. Clay was clearly a new experience for him, as it is for most Americans during their early stages of their pro careers. I'd be encouraged that a) Isner didn't worry about protecting his ranking and instead played a full clay-court season leading up to the French and b) he won one ATP level match on clay and went to five sets in the French Open. Granted that's not Nadal-level prowess on clay, but it's a start.

As for grass, it's easy to think that this would be Isner's best surface, but I'd argue it's not. Hear me out. First, grass doesn't play nearly as fast as it did back in the day, when a big serve and a half-decent net game could usually get you to the fourth round or so. Some think that some hard court tournaments during the summer may actually have faster surfaces.

Then there's the bounce, which is really critical. What makes grass fast in a lot of ways is that the ball skids on the surface. It's a lot better bounce than it used to be, but still not what you get on a hard court. This hurts Isner's game in two ways. Obviously at 6-9, he'd like the ball to bounce as high as possible. It's really tough for him to sustain a groundstroke rally with the high-pace and low-bounce of grass, thus making it hard for him to break serve. Plus, a true, high bounce actually helps Isner's serve. While he hits his serve with tremendous pace, what makes Isner's serve uniquely difficult are the unheard of angles he can get from his height and the outrageously high bounce he can get when he hits a kick serve in. This is really a factor on his second serve. When that serve comes in and bounces high to the backhand of a right-handed returner, it's nearly as effective as Isner's first serve. Against Gulbis, Isner won just 51% of his second serves, 31 out of 61. That's telling.

So I expect Isner's game and his results to pick up once he returns to the good old U.S. of A and gets back on the hard courts. And so does Jensen, who closed out his reports from Court 15 with this: "Isner started to look better in that fourth set. I think he can carry it on to the hard court season."

Isner will need to if he wants to keep his ranking up at its current level. He's now finally played 12 months on the ATP tour. That means that points he earned during his succesful summer of 2007 will start disappearing as they become more than a year old. First to go will be the 18 points he earned while winning his first pro tournament, a futures event in Chico, Calif. Looming out there are the 195 points he earned in back-to-back weeks in late July, when he won a challenger in Lexington, Ky. and reached the finals in D.C.

Hopefully I can catch up with John when he comes back stateside and his cell phone starts working again.

UPDATE 11:24: Well, that was sudden and final. After saving a set point, Gulbis wins his serve and then gets the final point of the match on Isner's serve. 8-6 Gulbis in the tiebreaker. He wins the match, 7-5, 7-5, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (6). I'll have more thoughts on this up in a few minutes. Give me a second to let my eyes return to normal after being glued to Slam Tracker.

UPDATE 11:22: We're on serve, which means Isner now has a set point at 6-5.

UPDATE 11:20: Okay, tiebreakers are not meant for liveblogging. Minibreak regained. 4-4.

UPDATE 11:19: Typed too soon. Another mini-break for Gulbis. 4-3.

UPDATE 11:18: We're at the changeover. 3-3. Isner with another serve coming.

UPDATE 11:17: Told you we'd be updating quickly. Isner gets a return point back. Level at 2-2.

UPDATE 11:16: Uh oh. Mini-break Gulbis, 2-0.

UPDATE 11:14: We're back to the tiebreaker! Get ready for fast and furious updates.

UPDATE 11:11 6-5 Gulbis. Here's what I was getting at earlier. We know Gulbis has a big advantage against Isner from the baseline. But from the point when Isner went to the third-set tiebreaker with Gulbis, he's won 17 points on the big Latvian's serve, after winning just nine up to that point. So clearly Isner's not lost out there trading groundstrokes with Gulbis. Oh, and Fowler just acknowledged that Isner and Gulbis are going "back and forth" and that it's a "very tight match." Jensen though, just described the match as "choppy" and the groundstroke rallies as "just brutal." Ouch.

UPDATE 11:05: Well, at 11:05, ESPN finally acknowledged that Gulbis is not, in fact, already in the the second round. They went out to Luke Jensen at Court 15 just as Isner was holding to make it 5-5 (Very, very tough game, by the way). Jensen's analysis: Isner is back in this match because he's found his first serve. But Isner's still in a lot of trouble whenever Gulbis can get his return back in play. Nothing really new there, but you get the feeling that this somehow offends the sensibilities of the ESPN folks. Or maybe I'm just being sensitive.
UPDATE 10:58: Now we're in the danger zone. Gulbis held serve to go up 5-4. Any slip here by Isner and it's the match. The tension on Slam Tracker grows.

UPDATE 10:52: Sign of progress or huge missed opportunity? For the first time in the match, Isner got a break point on Gulbis's serve. Two, actually. But Gulbis dug out of a 15-40 hole to hold and go up 4-3.

Watching these matches on Slam Tracker, where you basically wait for the scoreboard to change after each point, is a different kind of tension. It's kinda growing on me, actually.

UPDATE 10:48: Whooo boy, that was close. Isner just fought off two break points but managed to eke out another hold to knot the third set at 3-3. At this point, you're hoping he can get this to a tiebreaker again and work his magic. But remember, even if Isner does that, at some point he will have to figure out a way to break Gulbis's serve. There are no fifth-set tiebreakers at Wimbledon. On a slightly bright note though, Isner is now winning 17% percent of his return points, up from 11%. So he's got that going for him. Oh, and 28 aces.

UPDATE 10:38: Isner just climbed out of a 0-30 hole to hold serve and level the fourth set at 2-2. I know Gulbis is still in control, but twice the ESPN commentators jumped the gun and talked about how difficult Gulbis will be for Nadal in the second round. That was before Isner claimed the third set. Still waiting for some backtracking.

UPATE 10:25: Isner claims the third set, 7-3 in the tiebreaker. After winning a grand total of nine points in the first 18 Gulbis service games, Isner wins three of five return points in the tiebreaker. A breakthrough perhaps?

UPDATE: Another minibreak for Isner! 5-2 and he can serve the set out.

UPDATE: 4-2 at the changeover. Isner still up a mini-break.

UPDATE: Mini-break for Isner, 2-0 in the tiebreaker!

UPDATE: Okay, thanks to the wonders of DVR, I was able to surf back and find an Isner update from early in the third set. ESPN's Chris Fowler revealed that, yes, there are no cameras on Court 15 (Drat). But we got an update from Luke Jensen, who said that basically the problem has been that Gulbis is returning well, getting back more of Isner's serves than one would normally expect.

Still, Isner's plugging away. It looks like we're headed to a tiebreaker in the third. That's usually Isner's territory, but man, it's been hard for him to get points off the serve of Gulbis.

Yep, we're headed to a tiebreaker. Man, that was a fast service game.

INITIAL POST: Here's how fast Wimbledon matches sometimes go on the men's side. You wake up, get your kids dressed, get them fed and get them into daycare and by the time you come back, John Isner is down two sets to zero to Ernests Gulbis.

Right now it's 2-2 in the third set, but in the two service games Gulbis has had this set, he's lost zero points. Isner, by contrast, had to go to deuce before winning his last service game.

So it's not looking good for The Big Izzy right now. It may be a case of wrong player at the wrong time. Gulbis is red hot and loaded with talent.

Unfortunately, I'm having to follow Isner's match via Slam Tracker on my computer. No video. And the updates on ESPN2 are few and far between.

Here's the problem, I think. Isner's on Court 15. You can watch matches on Center, Court 1, Court 3, Court 6, Court 11, Court 17 and Court 18 on Wimbledon Live on Wimbledon.org. That tells me that they probably don't have any cameras around Court 15. Thus, we don't even get the occasional live look-in you'd normally get during tournament coverage.

3-3 now, since I've been writing this.