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MIAMI OPEN PRESENTED BY ITAUApril 3, 2015John IsnerMIAMI, FLORIDA N. DJOKOVIC/J. Isner THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Did you depend on your serve, the power of your serve, to get through the game? Was that one of your strategies? JOHN ISNER: Yeah. I depend on my serve a lot. Q. How do you rank Novak's return of serve? JOHN ISNER: Yeah, it's probably the best. So on top of that, he's very confident, too. He's won so many matches, just as he always. He won last week and on a roll again this week. You know, I thought he played pretty well. I certainly needed to play better in order to beat him, and I didn't do it. He was too good. He was just way better. I wish I could have played‑‑ maybe made the match a little bit tighter, but he was too good. Q. Forgive me if someone asked, but after the little bit of glitches in the first set, your spirits seemed to go down and you didn't look as confident as you had been looking. JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I don't know. I didn't quite have my legs underneath me like I did yesterday maybe for whatever reason. Conditions, it was a little bit more humid out there tonight. I didn't have quite as much pop on the ball as maybe I had earlier in the tournament. I needed a lot of pop in order to make a match like that closer. I just didn't quite have it tonight. Q. You regret having played doubles? JOHN ISNER: No. I think I maybe could have felt a little bit fresher had I not played doubles for an hour and a half last night, but you go into a tournament like this playing doubles to sort of practice for singles. I was able to play a doubles match before I even played a singles match, which is very beneficial. In a case like this, maybe was it a bit of a detriment. I can't think like that, I guess. Q. Given how things were after the Davis Cup, despite the tough loss today, you've still beaten Nishikori, Raonic, and Dimitrov back to back. Do you still think it's a success? JOHN ISNER: Yeah, for sure. Without a doubt it's a success considering how disappointing that was for me. I'll take this for sure. I've played well. I had some very good moments this tournament. Just goes to show these tournaments are so tough to win. I beat essentially three players in the top 10 in the world; Dimitrov was 11. Then I got to come and try to beat No. 1; if I would have won tonight I got to beat No. 3 or whatever. It's very, very tough. That's why Novak is the best in the world. He's so good. It was a good two weeks for me. I'm playing better. I have to build on this, and I will. Q. You played him a lot of times now. JOHN ISNER: Yeah. Q. Do you have a sense when you play and serve against him, do you have to pick different patterns against him or vary things differently in terms of trajectory, or doesn't matter what you do? JOHN ISNER: Yeah, there are some things tactically I can do better against him on the serve. With him, it's not necessarily ‑‑ a lot of times he gets the return back with interest, but if he just gets it back, period, no matter how the return is, he's going to be in the point with his defensive skills. So I think I could have done some things tactically better tonight. I'll look over that for sure. I think when he want first set he became even more confident than he was walking out on the court. And he was playing extremely loose in that second set. Really wasn't much I could do. He didn't miss too many balls in the second set. Q. Without giving away secrets, do you know where you should serve, where his patterns are, and you go to those spots? JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I mean, I think he was blocking his forehand return on the deuce side. Maybe I could serve and volley a little bit more there, I guess, but, I don't know. It's tough to think like that when you're out on the court. It's something for me to go over with my coach. Q. How hurtful was the tiebreaker to you? JOHN ISNER: The first set? Q. Right, yeah. JOHN ISNER: Yeah, it was. But at the same time, I was outplayed in that first set. I gave myself a chance and didn't win that tiebreaker. He played better. I thought he served well and put some very, very good returns in the court. Yeah, it was a little bit deflating, I guess. When he won that first set I felt like he just became so much looser. In the second set he played very well. Q. And how do you feel about the overall tournament? JOHN ISNER: Yeah, it was a good tournament for sure. I'm disappointed. I did well so I'm happy about that, but I'm not happy about this result tonight. I feel like I got to do better than I did. Certainly I'm not going to beat him all the time, but I'm walking away from this tournament with a loss. It's still disappointing. It was a good tournament, but it could have been better. Q. Do you feel more pressure than yesterday or than first round? Today you played against No. 1 player, Novak. JOHN ISNER: No, I don't think I felt more pressure. I mean, playing against Novak, most players really don't have ‑‑ I didn't have much to lose out there. I was the underdog, so I didn't feel much pressure out there. I felt good going in. Warmed up, I had taken the court, and I was ready to play and fired up for the match. But I just didn't quite have the level that I needed to bring in order beat him. He's No. 1 in the world for a reason. I had to play pretty close to my best to beat him, and I don't think I did that tonight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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