Isner, Young shine brightly in losses

Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com John Isner got a set off of Roger Federer before Federer started playing like the Fed Express.

FROM THE US OPEN – Americans John Isner and Donald Young. One stands at an imposing 6-foot-9. The other, a full foot shorter, is still growing, but will be lucky to see six feet. Ever. Two different players. Two different skill sets. Two very different sets of expectations. But, on Saturday, both proved they belonged at the elite-level of their sport.

Big John Isner honed his game at the University of Georgia – host of 25 of the past 29 NCAA Men's Tennis Championships and perhaps collegiate tennis' ultimate proving ground. There he became accustomed to playing in an atmosphere James Blake once likened to "a battlefield."

"There's nothing like it," said Blake, who, like Isner, reached a NCAA final. (Blake was a Harvard sophomore when he lost to Jeff Morrison in 1999.) "You've got 4,000 fans barking at you, yelling, screaming. Anything goes. You can yell in the middle of the points. It's really intense. It's something you can never really duplicate."

Mike Bryan, a member of Stanford's NCAA title teams of 1997 and 1998, echoed the sentiment. "The fans aren't held back like they are on the pro tour. These fans can get into it. They can yell. … When we played Georgia, we had to pull our hats down low and not even look at the crowd. They were eating us alive. For the first five or six games, we couldn't even move. We were paralyzed by fear. They try to get in your head. They do everything to unravel you."

Perhaps that's why the 22-year-old Isner, who led the Bulldogs to the NCAA team title in May, looked so calm, cool and collected on Saturday. It was a predicament that would have shaken even the steeliest of competitors. After all, he was playing in front of a packed Ashe Stadium crowd of 20,000-plus. And the guy on the other side of the net was none other than 11-time Slam champ Roger Federer.

"When I lost in college, I felt like I let my team down," said Isner, who is coached by Ricardo Acuna. "It was a terrible feeling. I didn't lose much in the team format, but when I did, I felt terrible. You always want to get that point for the team. When I lose out here, I'm only letting myself down. I think college tennis really has prepped me well for this because I don't feel as much pressure out here than I did playing college."

Isner came into the third-round match with his confidence at an all-time high. Less than two months after Georgia's D1 triumph on their home courts in Athens, Isner rode his booming serve into the final at the Legg Mason Classic in Washington. In only his second ATP Tour event, the native of Greensboro, N.C., swatted aside veterans like Tim Henman and Tommy Haas en route to a winner-take-all showdown with fellow American Andy Roddick, which he lost 6-4, 7-6(4).

THE DAWGS WERE BARKING
Then, playing in his first-ever Grand Slam at the US Open, he powered his way past Jarkko Nieminen and Rik de Voest to set up his meeting with Mr. Federer, who got a taste of those rabid "Dawg" backers.

"I knew it was going to get difficult today, especially with the crowd in the back," said Federer. "The more they screamed, the harder and more precise he served. It was really tough, but he definitely hit his lines in the first set. There was nothing you could do."

Isner, who's drawn comparisons to Ivo Karlovic, another player who's anything but vertically challenged (he's 6-foot-10) and boasts one of the heaviest, most deceptive serves on Planet Earth, came out firing and even managed to bully his way past Federer in the first-set tiebreak. But Federer, as he so often does, adjusted and came back to score a 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 win in two hours, 15 minutes. After the first set, Federer seemed to play near perfect tennis the rest of the afternoon. How perfect? The final numbers showed that Federer had zero unforced errors in the second and third sets. Ironically, Federer credited his opponent with the oft-misleading stat.

"What's an unforced error?" he asked the press afterward.

"He doesn't allow me to make an unforced error because he keeps attacking me all the time. He was serve and volleying. Every time he makes a passing shot, that's not an unforced error. So it's kind of like it's not telling the truth sometimes, especially against the big sever."

Despite the loss, Isner has more than a few positives to take away from his first-week run in Flushing Meadows.

"To think that four months ago I was unranked," said Isner, who out-aced Federer 18-10. "Go from that to beating Roger Federer in a set, it's pretty cool. I know I can play with the top guys in this game – maybe not him for three or five sets, but one set I can play with him. I can hang with most guys. This is a great experience for me. This whole summer has been. And, hopefully, I can continue to climb in the rankings."

Federer's win set up a fourth-round faceoff with Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, who got past Young 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(5), 7-5, but not without a fight.

Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com The '07 US Open may be remembered as the coming party of Donald Young.

FOREVER YOUNG
He's only 18, yet it seems as though Young has shouldered the at-times unreal expectations of the American tennis faithful for eons. With Nike, Head and IMG in hot pursuit, the Chicago-born lefthander opted out of the collegiate route and turned pro at the tender age of 15. Since he won the '01 USTA Boys' 12 Nationals, everyone from Johnny Mac on up began hyping the "can't miss" prospect who seemed to have every shot in the book.

But success at the ATP level didn't come overnight. During one stretch, Young endured 11 straight losses and was even double bageld by Argentine Carlos Berlocq, then ranked No. 81.

Suddenly, those same folks who were once singing his praises, those same folks hankering for a "Got Next" generation to follow in the footsteps of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang, held him up as a not-ready-for-primetime poster child. Perhaps he shouldn't have rushed into it. Maybe he should have gone to college. What about the Challenger circuit? What were his parents thinking?

At this tournament, Young has, for the moment at least, hushed a few of those doubters. In reaching the third round (the wildcard Young topped Aussie Chris Guccione in the first-round 6-7(2), 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 and was the benefactor of a second-round retirement by ailing Frenchman Richard Gasquet), coupled with his recent Wimbledon junior win, the all-courter has shown signs of maturity and is now hitting his shots with more authority. He may never be a 6-foot-9 skyscraper like John Isner, but if he continues to progress like he has in New York, he may just live up to some of those expectations after all.

"Third round of the U.S. Open – a tournament I've watched since I was little and always wanted to play in – to win matches and rounds in this tournament is awesome," said Young.

With Mardy Fish, it's his inability to close out matches at the majors even when it appears he has his foot firmly on the neck of his foe. With Rafael Nadal, it's having the clay-courter stigma of failing to have won a Slam off clay. With Lleyton Hewitt, it's whether or not family life has mellowed him too much (hence his upset at the hands of Agustin Calleri).

With Novak Djokovic, it's whether he has to work too hard to win matches early on at the Slams (see his 4-hour, 44-minute grinder over Radek Stepanek) to be able to go on to the title.

How about Isner? Is he just more than a serve and an occasional drop volley? And Donald Young? Does touch and feel matter when you are so small, and are his parents the right folks to be coaching him?

Mark Lyon Maria Sharapova road to repeating as USO champion didn't get past the third round.

Speaking of touch and feel, has Martina Hingis made herself irrelevant because she insists on playing totally the wrong way in order to hand with the power-balling teens? Will Patty Schnyder suffer the same fate in her attempt to keep up with 'ova's?

What of Nikolay Davydenko, will anyone ever think that some professional gambler somewhere isn't overly interested in the outcome off his matches.

And what about Maria Sharapova? Has becoming a mega-star set up her for too big of a fall? (There was actually cheering in pressroom after she melted down to Polish teenager Agnieszka Radwanska, although the rooting could have come from an Eastern Euro row or two.)

There are at least 100 others examples, but the largest monkey that was thrown off a back was that of the primate notion that hung on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, which has now delivered the most improbable bottom half of a draw at a Grand Slam in the fourth round during the Open Era. Even the most strident followers of the tour couldn't haven't predicted this elite eight, from the top:

Hungarian Agnes Szavay (who upset seventh-seeded Nadia Petrova 6-4, 6-4) will face Ukrainian Julia Vakulenko, who took down Maria Kirilenko.

Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, who destroyed Martina Hingis, will face '04 champ Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, who handled Anabel Medina Garriques.

Sixth-seed Russian Anna Chakvetadze, who again wasted Sania Mirza, will go up against 16-year-old Austrian Tamira Paszek, who upended Patty Schnyder in a third-set tiebreak.

Poland's Radwanska will go up against Israeli Shahar Peer, who played a remarkably gutsy match in outlasting Nicole Vaidisova in a third-set tiebreak.

At age 24, Vakulenko is the oldest of the bunch. Only two top seeds, Kuznetsova and Chakvetadze remain. There are three 18-year-olds and one 16-year-old among the eight. There are six Eastern Europeans. There are four unseeded players. Hello fans, welcome to the new world of women's tennis, where numerous players ranked into the 40s can beat the pants off legends, accomplished veterans and flashy up-and-comers alike.

"She can play," Hingis said of Azarenka. "It's just like first time I was 16 that I made the semifinal appearance here. I had a name because I was a good junior and I was already No. 16 seed at that point. But all these girls, you never know what to expect sometimes. So far we've been able to hold them back, but seems like they've improved. And this year especially there's a new group of youngsters coming up."

- Matthew Cronin

© TennisReporters.net 2007