Isner's in Cincy and other notes
According to the tournament website, John Isner got the wildcard he'd been hoping for to next week's tournament in Cincinnati. He'll find out his first-round opponent at 4:30 today.
Here are a few other Isner items that I couldn't squeeze into my story on Isner in Thursday's paper:
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One of the quirky things about the ATP tour as that players frequently have random practice partners at tournaments. The usual procedure is that players sign up for practice time on a particular court. They then show up at that time and practice with whomever else also asked for that time.
That's how, while preparing for Wimbledon, Isner found himself rallying with Rafael Nadal. Nadal has a reputation as a player that doesn't really believe in the warmup part of practice, as Isner readily confirmed.
"From the first ball he likes to rip," Isner said. "The very first ball you feed him he’ll hit Mach 10 back at you. There’s no time to get into a rhythm."
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Isner offered another interesting glimpse into life on the tour when he talked about doubles. Outside of the top doubles teams, the way pairings are formed is pretty informal. The partnership Isner formed with Mardy Fish before they played in - and won - Newport, came from an off-the-cuff comment Fish made while the two were practicing together in Tampa.
"He was like you want to play doubles and I was like sure I’ll sign us up," Isner said.
That's another sort of charming thing about tennis. In an age of entourages and handlers, the players still have to sign themselves up to play doubles at tournaments. Unfortunately though, that's why Isner didn't play doubles at Indianapolis recently. His expected partner, Donald Young, forgot to sign the duo up.
"I was kind of ticked off about it," Isner said.
Young and Isner have already played two tournaments together in doubles. But the player most likely to become Isner's steadiest doubles partner is fellow big man (6-6) Sam Querrey. The two played together twice on the clay court circuit. According to Isner, Querrey talked about playing doubles with Isner through most of the summer. But now that Querrey and James Blake will play doubles together for the U.S. in the Olympics, those two are spending much of the hardcourt season as a doubles team. Still, Isner expects that he and Querrey will team up together for the U.S. Open.
Isner's happy he won the Newport in doubles, but it's clear he'd take a few more singles wins instead.
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