If someone had asked me for my honest opinion before the Isner / Troicki match, I would have said that Isner might put up a fight, but Troicki will win the match. Viktor had just been so solid in his matches this week, while John’s play was less than consistent.

I was not overly surprised that John grabbed the 1st set in a tiebreak (really, shouldn’t all Isner first sets just start at 6 all?), but I was even less surprised when he took a mental walkabout in the 2nd set. There was a lot of noise in the arena from an audio feed from another court, and it bothered John a lot in the 1st set and he complained to the chair about the noise. The powers that be had seemingly fixed the problem, but then it started up again in the 2nd set while Isner was serving. He got annoyed, lost his concentration, got frustrated, and got broken.

Troicki took control and the second set easily. It briefly seemed that Viktor might run away with the match in the third set, but he lost his own concentration after winning a let on his serve. He lost the next point, his serve, and did not hold serve for the rest of the match.

As Troicki crumbled, Isner roared back. He changed tactics, switching to more kick serves that would allow him to come into the net. He also massively upped his return game. If Isner could return that well even 50% of the time, it would make such a difference in his game.

I knew for sure that John would run away with the match when he not only came out on top in the longest rally of the match, but took it on a winner. Isner’s new confidence fuueled game was really impressive. If he can keep the level he showed in the 3rd set against Monfils, we may very well see him in the final on Sunday.

Check out highlights I shot of the match below. I filmed with my regular camera, not my flip cam, so I apologize for the quality. And the abrupt editing. My non-flip cam editing software is rather poor, mea culpa.

(Pics & video via Racquet Required)