When we talk about matches featuring John Isner, we typically talk about how difficult he makes life for his opponents. They don’t get many chances to break, or even to get ahead in his service games, so they can’t afford to waste them. But this equation also works in reverse: Against a quality player, Isner will always be second-best in the consistency and speed departments. When he gets an opportunity, when he sees a hanging mid-court ball, he can’t afford to let it go unpunished.
At his best this year, Isner has taken those chances, but in his first set against Roger Federer today, he appeared to forget that strategy. Instead of belting whatever he could, he rallied. This was good enough through eight games, but not in the ninth. With Isner serving at 4-4, Federer used his chip backhand to force the American to hit up on his forehand. Isner missed four of them in that game, but managed to hold off two break points with two aces. On a third break point, he fired another huge serve, but Federer stabbed it back high and short. Isner misjudged the ball in the wind, and made his fifth forehand error of the game to be broken. Serving at 5-4, Federer snuffed out an Isner break point with a service winner, and ended the set with another.
Isner’s terrible mistake at 4-4 seemed to wake him up to how he needed to play. He was more aggressive and decisive in the second set, especially with his backhand return. But while he began to create opportunities on Federer’s serve, Isner couldn’t quite make them pay off. With Federer serving at 2-3, he reached 30-30, drilled a good backhand return, got a look at an approach, and sliced it into the net. At 3-4, he opened with another strong backhand return for 0-15, but Federer came back with a series of good serves. At 4-5, Isner reached 30-30 on Federer’s serve and had a look at a second serve. This time, though, Federer put something extra on it and placed it on the service line, where it handcuffed Isner. Two games later, Isner found himself in a similar situation three times. At 15-15 on Federer’s serve, he had a makable forehand pass; he hit it into the net. At 30-30, he went after a backhand return and sent it long. At deuce, he had another look at a backhand return. He put that one into the net. Federer held. Isner took his chances, but they remained stubbornly out of his grasp today.
Credit Federer for keeping them there, of course. He has blown his share of tight matches like this one in recent years, but today he played with a quality of decisiveness, like someone who knew what he had to do to win, and who was sure he could make it happen if he played the right way. On big points, he skewed reliable, hitting tough serves to different spots and following them with safe but aggressive forehands. Against Isner, Federer knew he didn’t have to put the ball close to the line to win a point; he just had to dictate and get the big guy running, and that’s what he did.
Afterward, Federer said he was happy with the way he played, and he should have been. He hit 26 winners against 11 errors, won 78 percent of his first-serve points, and was impressive on the backhand side as well. He came over that shot for a number of down the line winners.
The second-set tiebreaker was a masterpiece from both players. Virtually every point was won with either a service winner or a forehand winner—neither of them made an error. From 5-5, though, Federer was untouchable, literally. He cracked an ace for 6-5, and then slid a backhand return low. It clipped the loose Wimbledon net-cord and dribbled over for a 6-4, 7-6 (5) win, a trip to the semis, and a chance for Federer to earn the first Olympic singles medal of his career.
Afterward, Federer said he was lucky. Or was he really? “I hit it perfect,” he also said of his final return. Could this be a new shot for him, one that he can use at will in the future? He has all of the others, so why not add the match-ending return of serve net-cord winner to his repertoire?