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MIAMI OPEN PRESENTED BY ITAÃº

March 28, 2018

John Isner

Miami, Florida

J. ISNER/H. Chung

6-1, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You were just dominating today on your serve, serving big, and Hyeon wasn't able to feel his game. How do you think it went for you today?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I definitely served just as well as I did yesterday. And when I'm serving like that, especially in conditions like this where the ball's getting up high against my opponent, I know I can be very tough to beat. So that was another very good serving performance from me.

Q. Have you been doing anything different this week in terms of your training or anything, or it's kind of like why here, why now?
JOHN ISNER: No, I haven't been doing anything different. You know, it's funny when people like to think when you're struggling or not winning matches it's because you're not working hard. It's so not the case. I have done all the same things on the court.

Off the court I have, you know, spent some time hashing things out with my coach and what's been preventing me, I think, mentally from getting over the hump in close matches this year.

So that's more important than anything. Of course you always want to be professional and take care of what you have to do on the court, in the gym, you know, treatment-wise, but more than anything it's all between the ears.

Q. Are you a fan of the current ranking system?
JOHN ISNER: Like, what do you mean? 52-week?

Q. Exactly.
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I'm a fan. It's the only thing I have known. It's tough, though. It puts a lot of pressure on players, especially if you unfortunately aren't healthy. It's tough. Your ranking inevitably drops. It's tough to get back into the swing of things.

But, look, I'm fine with it. It's unique to our sport, for sure.

Q. Are you familiar with this UTR ranking, the thing that the colleges are using?
JOHN ISNER: No.

Q. Not at all?
JOHN ISNER: What is it?

Q. It's a rating, Universal Tennis Rating, and what it does is tracks you over the past few months. You know, it's a very high-tech kind of a thing, seems very reliable in terms of how it's produced, and it comes up with very different rankings because it really weighs your past couple months' results. So, for instance, in this tournament, Chung would is ranked 7 on the UTR. You're ranked, like, 20.
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Q. They are using it in college and a couple other places.
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, no, I have never heard of that.

Q. Obviously when you keep points short you're usually pretty successful. Do you feel like when it's windy, that almost helps your mindset just to even keep the points shorter?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, maybe a little bit, but it wasn't really that windy out there today compared to yesterday.

But I was in a good rhythm on the court. Obviously I was taking care of my serve, but I didn't feel like today I needed to really red-line things out there and try to end the points so short. I felt like I could be patient from the baseline, because I was very happy with how I was playing and, for me, how I was moving.

Of course I do want to always play aggressively, but today in particular I felt like I could be a little bit more patient and sort of pick my spots a little bit better.

Q. Obviously a Masters 1000 would be a big title for you, clearly. You have played on tour for a long time. Obviously you have had opportunities in Bercy last year and whatnot, but, you know, how do you take the pressure off of saying, you know, this would be one of the biggest moments in my career but also sort of motivate yourself to sort of take advantage of that?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, really what it comes down for me is keep doing what I'm doing and just keep that feeling that I'm having on the court. If I can keep that and, you know, obviously block everything else out, it's simple.

As I said, just take care of my serve and hit my shots and just be calm out there and be relaxed. You can't play when you're tense and tight and elbows stuck here and you can't release on your shots. It's no fun playing like that. The way I played this week is a lot of fun.

Q. I have some Davis Cup questions for you. You're playing Belgium in Nashville. They are coming particularly without any of their top players. Do you even know the guys that are coming to play, like Bemelmans, DeLoore? Do you even know those guys?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I know Ruben. I don't know the other guys, as well. So for sure our team is the favorite. There is no doubt about that.

But again, we're not looking past this team at all. We're bringing a very strong team, and they're missing two of their players with Goffin, obviously top 10, and Darcis. So their team is a little bit depleted.

But you have seen, everyone has seen in Davis Cup before that teams have pulled off big upsets. It happens. There's a lot of pressure in Davis Cup, and there's certainly going to be pressure on us to win this tie because we're going to be the heavy favorite.

So we know that. We're all committed to playing this year. That's why we're bringing five guys, five of our best. We are all looking forward to it, but we are certainly not looking past this team in any way.

Q. You say you bring the whole team, your A team. Was there any temptation to say, Okay, I pass on this one because of the apparent one-sided result that's coming?
JOHN ISNER: No, no, no, not at all. And even more so, I think we all want to go to Nashville and hang out. We're actually -- on Tuesday night, in Nashville, the WWE is in town. Look, we're going to enjoy it. That's one of the coolest cities in America.

You know, look, our guys, we went to Serbia in February. It's a long trip. It's tough to do that right after Australia, I guess, so we're not going to miss this one in Nashville.

Q. What do you think about the change in the Davis Cup format that are going to be voted in August?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, it's different. I mean, I think for scheduling it helps, but there is a certain allure of Davis Cup with the home/away, you know, the passion and pageantry of it, of, you know, going on the road and playing in a hostile environment or playing at home and having your crowd cheer you on.

That's sort of gone now. It's definitely going to be different. We'll see what it's like.

Q. Obviously no idea yet who you've got next, but can you just look at both players independently, Del Potro and then talk about Raonic, please.
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, well, Del Potro is playing the best tennis in the world right now. I don't think that can be argued. He won Acapulco and he won Indian Wells, and he's still going here.

Physically he's probably as fit as he's ever been. Seems like he's hitting his backhand with as much vigor as he ever has. He's got everything else, as well. So he's in a good space right now, for sure.

And Milos finally appears to be getting back to top form. He's one of the game's best players. He had a rough 2017 with injuries and, you know, his ranking dipped a little bit, but he's back to playing at an extremely high level. He's a guy that does really all the right things on the court, in the gym, and so it's good to see him back healthy and playing well. It's going to be a very good match tonight.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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