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Well it looks like John Isner's luck with draws may be turning. Not only did he get a wildcard into the Western & Southern Financial Masters in Cincinnati, he also got a matchup against a qualifier, Andrea Stoppini of Italy. (Here's the full draw if you want to take a look.)

Take a look at Stoppini's playing activity this year (or just let me do that heavy lifting for you) and you'll see that this is his first ATP event of the season. It's been all Challengers and Futures in 2008 for the 28-year-old Italian. He fits the "journeyman" label pretty well, I'd say.

But, Stoppini has been playing well lately, having reached the quarterfinals of the Lexington challenger last week (a tournament Isner won last season) and the finals of a challenger in California the week before. He's bumped his ranking up from 307 to No. 234 in the process. Between that streak and the Cincy qualifying, Stoppini has one clear advantage over Isner - lots of recent match play.

Winning his opening round is important to Isner not just for establishing some positive momentum during the pre-U.S. Open stretch, but also for his ranking. Because Isner took last week off, he earned 0 ranking points while at the same time the 55 points he got for winning Lexington last year. That meant his ranking took a 17-spot nosedive this week, from No. 90 to No. 107. That's not a big deal for the immediate future, because Isner already has spots guaranteed in tournaments up to the U.S. Open and would, in all likelihood, get a wildcard into the Open if he needed one.

But beyond that, the tournament fields in the fall will shrink and thus the rankings needed to get entry into the main draw will be lower. And there's the 140 points or so Isner will lose once the one-year anniversary of his run to the finals in D.C. expires,

So those 35 ranking points that Isner would get with a first-round win in Cincy are pretty important. Why so many points? This is a Masters series event, which are arguably tougher than Grand Slams when it comes to the talent level. Eleven of the top 12 players in the world are in the 56-player draw. The lowest-ranked player to get a direct entry into the draw was No. 78 Florent Serra.

As you can see, Isner got a pretty good break drawing a qualifier in the first round, given the rest of the field. If he can take advantage of this opportunity, then he'd have a decent second round as well, with a likely matchup against 18th ranked Radek Stepanek, the No. 15 seed. Given that Isner would have to face a top-16 seed (or an upset winner) in the Round of 32, a No. 15 seed is pretty good fortune.

But that's looking ahead. For now it's Stoppini in the first round, likely on Tuesday.

Oh, and Isner's in the doubles draw, teaming up with Mardy Fish again. They play the French team of Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra. No time yet for their match, which means it'll probably be on Tuesday as well.