{"id":1196,"date":"2013-08-07T11:32:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T15:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2013-08-07T11:32:56","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T15:32:56","slug":"john-isners-momentary-tiebreak-blip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/07\/john-isners-momentary-tiebreak-blip\/","title":{"rendered":"John Isner’s Momentary Tiebreak Blip"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tiebreak legend John Isner<\/a> has now lost four tiebreaks in a row, including a demoralizing two breakers in his match yesterday against 71st-ranked Vasek Pospisil<\/a>. \u00a0Aside from his loss to the Canadian, however, Isner’s sudden tiebreak weakness hasn’t hurt him, nor does it seem to be a sign of poor play or weak nerves. \u00a0In fact, he has excelled–as usual<\/a>–on the North American hardcourts. Twice last week, against both Marcos Baghdatis<\/a> and Dmitry Tursunov<\/a>, Isner dropped the first set in a breaker, then came back to win the following two sets with scores of 6-4 or better.<\/p>\n

Further, this brief spell of Haase<\/a>-style tiebreak play follows a much longer stretch of typical end-of-set dominance. \u00a0Until losing the first set against Kevin Anderson<\/a> in the Atlanta final, Isner had won 12 breakers in a row. He immediately bounced back from the setback against Anderson by winning two breakers to claim the match, then won two more in his next match against Alex Kuznetsov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Summary: The tiebreak mojo is still intact.<\/p>\n

At a broader level, Isner has won 70% of his tiebreaks over the last 52 weeks, a rate higher than he has ever sustained for a full season. \u00a0Specifically in 2013, he has won 28 of 39 tiebreaks, good for 72%. \u00a0By comparison, Anderson has won 57% this season, Roger Federer<\/a> 59%, and even the inimitable Steve Darcis<\/a> has never won more than 72% of breakers for a full year.<\/p>\n

This isn’t to take away from Pospisil’s achievement, however. \u00a0Isner’s career tour-level tiebreak record of 65% suggests that taking two breakers from him in a single match is difficult, and it’s all the more so for a player who most would not consider as Big John’s equal. \u00a0In 25 career tour-level tiebreaks before yesterday’s match, the Canadian had won a mere 11.<\/p>\n

In fact, of Isner’s 258 career best-of-three-set matches on tour, this was only the seventh in which he lost two sets 7-6. \u00a0Given the sheer number of tiebreaks he plays, that in itself quite the accomplishment. \u00a0No one had administered such a loss to Isner since last year’s Madrid Masters, where\u00a0Marin Cilic<\/a>\u00a0beat him\u00a07-6 7-6.<\/p>\n

When watching the American lose the occasional tiebreak, it’s important to remember that for the vast majority of players, breaker outcomes are essentially luck<\/a>. \u00a0Isner is one of the few players to demonstrate a consistent tiebreak skill<\/a>, but even that skill can’t prevent the occasional serving outage or an outstanding run of play from a streaky opponent.<\/p>\n

With Isner (and by extension, all US men<\/a>) falling out of the top 20, it’s tempting to point fingers and look for answers. \u00a0But don’t blame Big John. \u00a0If you must find fault, blame Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tiebreak legend John Isner has now lost four tiebreaks in a row, including a demoralizing two breakers in his match yesterday against 71st-ranked Vasek Pospisil. \u00a0Aside from his loss to the Canadian, however, Isner’s sudden tiebreak weakness hasn’t hurt him, nor does it seem to be a sign of poor play or weak nerves. \u00a0In … Continue reading John Isner’s Momentary Tiebreak Blip<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tiebreaks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}