BNP Quarterfinals: Isner Overcomes Errors To Silence Simon
 
The second men's quarterfinal match at the BNP Paribas Open on Thursday pitted John Isner (ranked 11th in the world) against Gilles Simon, who was ranked 13th. Momentum has been really pushing Isner to new highs in his ranking as he is making a serious push to enter the Top 10 for the first time when the new standings are released next Monday (March 19th). While this is merely speculation, I think the win in Davis Cup over Roger Federer gave him a huge shot of confidence in his game, that he had the ability to beat even great players whereas before, having a close match against them and losing was acceptable. Don't get me wrong; no professional athlete likes to lose to anyone. But Roger Federer will probably go down as one of the greatest players to ever pick up a racquet and play men's professional tennis. I am of the opinion that no one can definitively state who the best player of all time is (or was) because there are too many variables and you can't make meaningful comparisons of players from different eras. Besides, there is no consensus as to what criteria to use that everyone can agree on.
 
After Davis Cup Isner played in Memphis, where he reached the quarterfinals in a losing effort to Jurgen Melzer, 3-6, 6-7 (6) and the semifinals at Delray Beach where he lost to Kevin Anderson, 5-7, 6-7 (4). In this event, he has beaten Frederico Gill, Juan Monaco and Matthew Ebden to get to the quarterfinal round against Simon. In four previous appearances here, he has reached the Round of 16 twice, so this is his deepest penetration for a tournament played at Indian Wells. Perhaps more importantly, he has very few points to defend between now and the start of the summer hard court season. He won Newport last year, which is played on grass, got to the finals in Atlanta where he lost to Mardy Fish and the semifinals of Washington, D.C. (loss to Gael Monfis). Therefore, he is poised to take off in the rankings in the coming weeks and months.
 
His opponent for the Thursday quarterfinals was Gilles Simon. These two players met in last year's U.S. Open Round of 16 with the 6'9" American winning 7-6 (2), 3-6, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4). Right out of the gate, Isner was broken in the first game of the match and it looked like he was off to a slow start. Throughout the course of this match, Isner would go on to record far too many unforced errors and as of late in the third set, was at -15 in his plus / minus (35 winners vs. 50 unforced errors) while Simon was not substantially better with a -4 (17 winners against 21 unforced errors). Isner's first loss of serve came on a forehand error that landed wide in the doubles alley towards the ad side of the court. While I did not see a specific breakdown as to how many errors came on that wing, from watching this match, I'd have to say that the vast majority of them came from his forehand. Isner has a gigantic serve and Andy Roddick once said that it looked like it was coming out of a tree due to his height. It is true that a player's height can often become an advantage in tennis. It can also work against a player as the obvious way to defeat them is to make them run and bend down to reach low balls. The spike in his negative plus / minus rating came early as he managed to hit 6 unforced errors against only two winners before the match was even three full games old.
 
Isner managed to break back to get the score to 3-3 in a one of the longest games of the match, which lasted 11 minutes, and featured several deuce counts. He then held on to his serve to go up 4-3 then broke again to get to 5-3, and the first set was essentially over. He eventually won that first frame 6-3. He closed the first set with a lot of momentum by winning 16 of the last 21 points in that particular frame. For the match, Isner hit only 11 Aces, which is well below his average on the ATP Tour. In fact, he ranked second on tour prior to the start of this event with a total of 252 Aces in 16 matches (15.75 Aces per match average) while Milos Raonic ranked first in this particular category (307 Aces in 19 matches; 16.15 per match average).
 
The second set was a completely different story for Isner. Whatever he was doing right in the first set suddenly went away from him in the second as he was broken twice to go down 1-6. The decisive set was a very closely contested affair with neither player giving much ground. In fact, there was only one break of serve and that came at the expense of Gilles Simon very late in the set. Shortly thereafter, Isner had double match point which he converted to win the match, 6-3, 1-6, 7-5. He next faces Novak Djokovic, who easily dispatched Nicolas Almagro in straight sets, 3 & 4.