John Isner needed 33 aces and two and a half hours, outlasting Gilles Muller at the Atlanta Tennis Championships as the American registered his first win since making history at Wimbledon. Marathon man Isner beat an inspired Muller 4-6, 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (9/7) Wednesday, lifting his career record in final-set tiebreakers to 16-5.
"I didn't want to let the fans down," Isner said. "I didn't want to lose my first match here. I had a lot of friends and family here, so I didn't want to go out early," said Isner. "I felt I was shedding the rust off in the second and third sets. I will only keep getting better. This was one of the biggest wins of the year. I wanted to get matches under my belt before Washington and the two Masters 1000s."
Muller, ranked 206, turned in a miracle performance for a player who missed the last half of 2009 with injury and was playing in only his second event at the ATP level after Queen's club last month. The outsider fired 29 aces, just four less than Isner. The 27-year-old Muller from Luxembourg had two match points annulled and forced Isner to serve his way out of danger, going through on his own second winning chance.
"Every break point or match point I had, he was serving. There was nothing I could do about it. He was serving well, that was it. You had to try to return and hope for the best." Isner, who is seeded second here, won the longest match in tennis history last month at Wimbledon, 70-68 in the fifth set over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, who has forever lost his label of anonymity after the 11-hour epic over three days.
But Isner doesn't want to live in the past after discussing his huge victory for weeks now. He went out in the Wimbledon second round to Dutchman Thiemo de Bakker. "I'm ranked in the Top 20, I think I can still improve and keep climbing," said the number 19. "My goal is to reach the top 10 and contend at the really big events."
American Taylor Dent reached his first quarter-final in half a decade, staging a comeback to upset fourth seed Horacio Zeballos 4-6, 6-2, 6-0. Dent last got this far on the ATP in 2005 in Tokyo, when he lost to Finn Jarkko Nieminen. "This is a big deal, I've strung two really good wins together," said the winner. "But I don't want to celebrate. "My sights are set pretty high.
I don't know if my goals are attainable. I'm happy with this result but I want to move forward, keep improving and advancing." Dent, 29, who is 94th-ranked in the world, is slowly rebuilding his career after back surgery several seasons ago. His progress so far is his best since coming back to tennis in late 2008. He advanced past a second round for the first time this season.