John Isner Outlasts Friend Steve Johnson In Second-Round Marathon At U.S. Clay Court Championships – Houston Chronicle

Johnson had saved eight — eight — break points in the 11th game of the second set alone, yet still found himself stuck in a third set, when, by then, most of the weary spectators had gone home. Those who stayed, though, were thoroughly enjoying themselves. The happy Isner, however, forgave them for “their whooping and hollering.”

The last ball, not surprisingly Isner’s final ace, would be struck at 11:26 p.m. Between them, they had saved 17 break points before Isner finally seized the moment, giving himself a chance to serve for the match.

The by-far oldest player left in the draw, Isner moves on to face another fellow — if considerably younger — American in Frances Tiafoe, the equally gritty survivor of a 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (4) war of wills against another 36-year-old, Pablo Cuevas, that lasted for an even more exhausting 2 hours and 40 minutes. The 24-year-old Tiafoe, who’s just a shade off his career high at No. 30 in the ATP rankings, is through to the quarterfinals in Houston for the first time in four tries.

Dealing with elbow issues, Tiafow hasn’t played a lot of late so his working overtime, he suggested, might have done him more good than harm.

“I got really solid toward the end,” Tiafoe said. “I was really in rhythm from the back of the court and he gave me a couple loose points in the third-set breaker. I took advantage of it. It’s good to get wins. Maybe it could have been (6-4, 6-4) . . . lots of drama . . . but I just need wins, and today’s win is big.”

Some seven hours before Isner and Johnson finally took the court, play began with the nominal defending champion Christian Garin, who became the last man standing the last time Houston’s ATP tour event was played in 2019 and also the guy who dispatched Sock, going down hard in his first set against the volatile Aussie, Jordan Thompson. Garin, however, had a surfeit of good vibes working in his favor.

The 25-year-old Chilean almost miraculously recovered from a double-break third-set deficit against Sock. This after also surviving consecutive opening-set losses in route to his first of five ATP Tour titles claimed on these grounds 36 months ago. In short, Thompson never stood a chance. Garin ultimately rolled to a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory, running his record to a pristine 7-0 at River Oaks.

Among the eight singles survivors, just the Isner-Johnson winner will have more career Ws in H-town than Garin, and they’ve played a combined 44 Clay Courts matches to collect theirs. The only player to have assembled a longer winning streak from the get-go in the Clay Courts’ Houston era was Andy Roddick. Roddick reeled off 14 victories in a row at Westside Tennis Club with titles in 2001 and 2002 and a finals appearance in 2003, when he lost to Andre Agassi.

But who knows? If not for what he called the “very crazy times” wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing Houston off the ATP calendar for consecutive springs, Garin might be going for his fourth in a row, so comfortable he seems once ensconced in the 77019 area code.

“I said this many times, this tournament is my favorite ‘250,’ ” Garin said, referencing where the Clay Courts ranks in the ATP’s pecking order, beneath the Grand Slams, the Master Series 1000s like the BNP Paribas and Miami Opens that precede Houston and the middle-tier 500s. “I love to come here, and I really missed it (in 2020 and 2021). These fans are great. Every day there are more coming. For the players, it’s amazing.”

The Clay Courts came at a perfect juncture for Garin, who has seen his ranking drop from a career-best 17 at the end of 2021 to its current 29 — still good enough for a fifth seed but not a first-round bye. After battling through back-to-back five-setters at the outset of the Australian Open, he had been on an 0-5 tailspin before again finding a safe haven in Houston, the place where he first secured a ranking inside the top 50.

Garin, who climbed as high as No. 4 in the world as a junior and won his first ATP match when he was 16, took a full month off before Miami to give a shoulder injury that had been bothering him since last year a chance to heal. He also made a coaching change.

“I didn’t think I was ready to compete at this level,” he said. “I went to Miami to just play in a match. I lost in second round (after a first-round bye), but I had very good feelings. I’m playing three matches now without pain after many months of pain.”

Garin admitted the conditions “were pretty difficult” for both players with the wind gusting on occasion to almost 30 m.p.h. while they were on the court before gradually calming as nightfall approached. Nonetheless, he said, “I think we both played two good sets. In the third I start serving even better than in the second one and that marked the difference.

“I have not that many matches this year,” he said, “I have to get back into the rhythm of the tournaments. I need to improve a lot of things.”

Garin is fully aware the next threat to his perfect record is a formidable one. While the friendly, familiar clay under his feet should favor him to a certain extent, the second-seeded, 13th-ranked Taylor Fritz is less than three weeks removed from the biggest win of his career, a 6-3, 7-6 (5) victory in the Indian Wells final over Rafael Nadal, who had won his record 21st Grand Slam title in Australia in January. To put that triumph in its proper perspective, the 35 Americans currently active on the Tour are 3-32 against the Spaniard.

Fritz looked the part of a guy who could slay Nadal, too, making reasonably short work of another feisty Chilean, Alejandro Tabilo, to get the day’s schedule somewhat back on track after the two afternoon marathons. Despite a late wobble, he dismissed Tabilo 6-1, 6-4 for his first victory in Houston, following a first-round loss in 2019 to the Clay Courts’ 2008 champion, Nadal’s countryman Marcel Granollers.

“It’s still a little crazy to think about what happened (at Indian Wells),” he told the Houston fans, before adding, “I’m a much better tennis player than I was the last time I came here.”