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John Isner has decided to start the 2012 season with a new sponsors. John has moved from Nike to Lacoste. Obivously Lacoste were offering some good money.

Isner had been sponsored by Nike since his college years at the University of Georgia, and will now join a strong Lacoste team which includes Richard Gasquet and Milos Raonic.

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The letdown of American male tennis players in the last 5-7 years is often viewed the wrong way.  Many have been led to believe that there simply has been a lag in American talent.  This statement is easily falsifiable.   Currently, there are 10 Americans in the top 100 in the world.   This is the most of any country apart from Spain, which has 13 men ranked in the top 100.

Now this begs question of has there actually been a letdown of talent or a failure of high expectations?   I think undoubtedly the latter is the answer.  Following the legacies of greats such as Agassi, Sampras,  and Courier is no short task.  It would be unreasonable to expect any group of any players from any country during any time period to achieve on the same level as these Americans did during the 80s’ and 90s.

If you go back in history, the only county since the beginning of the open era (1968) to achieve something comparable to what the Americans of the 1990′s achieved were Swedes in the 70s and 80s.  Wilander, Borg, and Edberg combined for 24 grand slams over an 18 year period.  The combination of Agassi, Sampras, Courier, collected 27 grandslams in 13 years.

A prime example of a player that has “failed” in the eyes of many Americans is Donald Young.  When Donald Young was 15 people were sighting him as the next big star and a shoe in as a future number one based on his success at Junior National Championships in Kalamazoo which he was winning.    Currently ranked 89th in the world, Young is 22 and already considered a bust.  It is extremely premature to declare the career of a 22 year old a disappointment.   Recently, many players have enjoyed their greatest successes near the end of their careers.  Two examples of this are Mardy Fish, who has surged to a career high ranking of number 7 at age 29 and Jurgen Melzer, a journeymen Austrian who made his deepest career run in every single major coincidentally at the age of 29.

With players on the rise such as  Mardy Fish, Ryan Harrison, Sam Querrey, Donald Young, John Isner, Alex Bogomolov Jr. , and Ryan Sweeting the future of American tennis appears to be very promising.  And while this group of players will unlikely achieve the greatness of those in the 1990s, it would be wise to hold off on the bust word for a while.

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Mardy Fish has been able to win the Atlanta Tennis Championships after saving two match points. Mardy won 3-6 7-6 6-2 to take the title.

Fish was down 5-1 in the tiebreaker and saved two match points to come back and win the title in three sets.

“When you’re in that position, it’s almost over,” Fish said. “I was lucky to get out of it. I played some good points. I don’t think he missed any first serves there. I stuck some returns and put some balls in play.”

“I didn’t necessarily change anything tactically,” Fish said. “I took care of my serve games a little bit better once I lost serve in the first game of the second.”

Matthew Ebden of Australia won his second straight doubles title, teaming this week with Alex Bogomolov Jr., in a 3-6, 7-5, 10-8 super-tiebreaker victory over Matthias Bachinger and Frank Moser of Germany.

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Starting in a few months time is the final Grand Slam of the year the US Open 2011. There have been two players dominating tennis in 2011 and that has been Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, but who is really going to do well at the US Open and take the title?

Novak Djokovic has only lost 1 match all year and that was at the 2011 French Open. I hate to say it, but I cant see Novak winning the US Open 2011 as the number 1 seed. I think there will be too much pressure for him to handle (although I think he will make the semifinals).

Rafael Nadal seems to always be in great form and Im sure at the US Open 2011 it will be no different. Rafa likes the high bouncing hard courts of the US and it fits his game very nicely. I can see Rafael making the final of yet another Grand Slam event this year.

However, my winner for the US Open 2011 has to be Roger Federer. I think after Wimbledon he is going to be very hungry and will put absolutely everything into getting this title. Roger’s game fits in perfectly with the courts and the surroundings in the US. He will also have a lot of support from his superstar American friends. Roger is my prediction to take the title.

Outsider of the tournament: My outsider is John Isner. The American is playing some great tennis at the moment and just won the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in Newport with relative ease. Isner to make the Quarterfinals and knock out some top players!

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Day 3 was an amazing day. Day 3 saw Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray in action amoung other great players.

Nadal came up against John Isner, who has an amazingly big serve. It was expected that Nadal would dominate the match and just simply be too strong on the clay. However, Isner was playing his A-game and Nadal was quick lucky to win in five very tough sets. 6-4 6-7 6-7 6-2 6-4.

In the rest of the matches most of the seeds got through without any trouble at all. However, Nicolas Almagro (11) was not so lucky as he fell to Lukasz Kubot in five sets. 3-6 2-6 7-6 7-6 6-4.

For me the pick of the matches was between two of the older guys on tour, Dmitry Tursunov and Xavier Malisse. These guys were roughing it on court 17 and they gave the crowd something to talk about. The match lasted three hours and saw Xavier Malisse progress 6-1 in the fifth set.

Womens Singles:

In day 3 on the womens side everything seemed to go very well for all the seed. The only seed that didnt make it through was Ana Ivanovic (whats news). Ana seemed to be playing strong tennis as she lost the first set 7-6 and then won the second set 6-0. However, as Ana isnt really predictable, she then went on to lose the third set 6-2.

For me the match of the day was Patty Schnyder and Sorana Cirstea. This was expected to be a very close match between two good players who both were not seeded. However, it seemed like Patty didnt really turn up for the match and Cirstea steam rolled her 6-1 6-3.

Overall:

Rafael Nadal has a tough match and progressed, this could set him up nicely for a good campaign here! In the other matches Andy Murray played very well, but he tends to run out of steam in the second week of Grand Slams. Outsiders are Robin Soderling and Gilles Simon, both played very well today.

Kim Clijsters has to be the favourite for this title and she didn’t disappoint today. Surprisingly Maria Sharapova is playing some great tennis at the moment and I could see he going quite deep in this tournament.

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Isner received a warm standing ovation from the Yankee Stadium crowd, in contrast to the welcome plate umpire Joe West got.

In April, West criticized the Yankees and Red Sox for dragging out games after working their three-game series. The games finished in 3:46, 3:48 and 3:21, which is still 10 minutes shorter than Isner’s match.

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The media run for John Isner has begun and he has just appeared on Late Night with David Letterman. The longest tennis match ever can make you a lot of money! John read out “Top Ten Thoughts That Went Through John Isner’s Mind During the 11-Hour Tennis Match.”

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It’s already the longest match in tennis history at 10 hours but the 7 hour, 6 minute fifth set alone was enough to break the old record of 6 hours, 33 minutes set at the 2004 French Open. The on-court scoreboard (above) even broke down while the online Slam Tracker reset itself to 0-0 once the score hit 50-50.

The comment on DTL said it the best:

So what was it like watching every minute of this battle of attrition live on TV? Well, I can only compare the experience to what it’s like staring at a JJ outfit: I desperately wanted to look away but I kept being drawn back to the insanity of it all.

We also wrote about Mahut and his epic marathon in the qualifying event. Mahut defeated Alex Bogdanovic 24-22 in the third set and final round of qualifying. Has he played the most games ever at Wimbledon in a single year?

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Other players to have pulled out of the French Open include Dmitry Tursunov of Russia and Mario Ancic of Croatia. Tursunov has a heel injury and Ancic pulled out because of lack of fitness.

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