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SONY ERICSSON OPEN

March 27, 2011

John Isner

MIAMI, FLORIDA

J. ISNER/A. Bogomolov
6-2, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Good win. I guess you really needed this week. Struggled a bit and looks like you're getting your confidence back out there?
JOHN ISNER: Absolutely. You know, I wanted another hardcourt tournament in the States, and this is what I have. It's important, you know, this, and I'm going to play Houston, as well. You know, it's important to get some wins under my belt before I go over to Europe on the clay court season.
You don't want to go over there feeling pretty down about your game. The more wins I get, the better I'm going to feel.

Q. I guess with Andy out early, surprising everyone, you get the old story, Oh, American tennis is dead. Meanwhile, Mardy is having a fine resurgence. Obviously you're right there. Does that bother you, hearing all that stuff?
JOHN ISNER: No. I mean, I don't hear it as much. I mean, I feel like Andy gets the brunt of it, which is pretty unfair, in my opinion. If you go back and look at how consistent he's been, it's actually remarkable.
The press is going to get on him for that. After this week, there's a chance no American is going to be in the top 10. I'm sure we're going to hear a lot about that.
The reality is, as for Andy, he had a bundle of points to defend these last three weeks here, Indian Wells and Miami, but after that, he was kind of struggling a little bit with injuries and whatnot. So his ranking is going to continue to climb up. He'll be back in the top 10 before year's end, for sure.

Q. How about you?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, you know, this tournament is a big one. I'm not too focused on my ranking. I haven't looked at the rankings in months. I don't do that. I don't ever go to the ATP website or anything. I just stay away from that stuff. I'm just going to let my results dictate where and how far I go.

Q. You were probably expecting to play the other Andy in this round. What was your reaction to that?
JOHN ISNER: I didn't want to think too much about it. A lot of times when, I guess, a draw sort of opens up, you know, guys tend to maybe not play as well and think about it.
I didn't want to think about it. I had no idea who I was playing next until like 20 minutes ago. So I'm not looking at the draw and just taking it one match at a time.

Q. Related to what you said earlier, I read that you said something about that you were not going to focus on Grand Slams but just on what you needed to do to become a better player. What prompted that? What was the point that you kind of made that shift, and how that's been going?
JOHN ISNER: Well, yeah. I mean, it hasn't been going that well this year, to be honest, but that's what my focus always is on. I'm focused more on the process, not necessarily the result, which means just playing the right way at the right times at court. If I can do that, everything is going to take care of itself.
So I think that's huge for me. It's just doing the right things on the court. As long as I do that, everything will be good for me.

Q. So I know you had a disappointing round at Delray Beach. Do you regroup after that?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, that one stung, and then I went to Davis Cup and had one that stung even more. So it was rough sledding there with Memphis, Delray, and Davis Cup. I didn't play well in Indian Wells either.
So it's just -- I hit a bad patch. It's been a while since I've kind of hit a bad patch like that. I'm sure it happens to everybody. But I feel like I'm getting out of it and making the right adjustments.
I'm still alive in this tournament, which is good.

Q. With you and Kevin Anderson playing in the next round, we'll have two former college stars meeting in the fourth round. What's that like for you?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I think it's -- well, first of all, with the matchup, we've played each other a bunch of times. We played each other a lot in college and I think four times in the pros.
We know each other's games. It's pretty simple. We're just going to try to somehow -- one person is going to try to get a break on the other's serve. If it doesn't happen, we'll go to a tiebreaker. We're both big servers out there.
But, yeah, it speaks volumes for college tennis with myself and him and Somdev, who lost today. All three of us came out from the 2007 college class, and all of us are doing really well. So that looks really good for college tennis.
I just hope that more players choose to go that route. Because especially in the guys' game, I don't know if there's -- there are maybe one or two teenagers in the top 100. You don't see it as much anymore.

Q. Why is it good?
JOHN ISNER: It's just you mature. You have fun. You have great practice. You have all the resources at your disposal that you want.
As long as you're a good player, you're going to win a lot. No matter what the competition is, as long as you're winning, that is going to build a lot confidence for you.

Q. I think you're three wins, one loss against him in the pros, but in college was it the same way?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah. I've gotten the better of him in our matches. The biggest one we played was the NCAA finals, the team championship. We played Georgia verse Illinois. It was in Athens, and I got him in that one, too. That's still going to be the biggest match we'll play unless we meet in a final of a big event.

Q. That was '07?
JOHN ISNER: 2007, right.

Q. The other thing is the tall angle. Is that something that fans seem to enjoy or people talk about a lot?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I'm a little bit taller than he is. He's not used to looking up to anybody, I'm not used to looking at anybody that's almost at my eye level, so it's a unique matchup for sure.
It should be a good tennis match to watch.

Q. Does it change it a little bit for you because you're used to people being somewhat smaller as far as strategy?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, definitely changes the strategy. There's a little bit different strategy for pretty much every match you play.
But for me, I just try to keep it simple, and that's just hold my serve. And especially against him, I just got to take my chances on return games and just swing away.
Odds are I'm not going to break him every time. If I do happen to come across a breakpoint, just go after it and to see what happens.

Q. Do you feel like today was the best you played this season?
JOHN ISNER: Yeah, I feel like the first set was pretty good; second set could have been better. But I'm definitely getting better.

Q. Do you have you VCU and Butler in the Final Four?
JOHN ISNER: No. My bracket is -- I don't have one Final Four team. It's pretty bad.

Q. Who did you have?
JOHN ISNER: Kansas, Kansas State, Ohio State, and San Diego State.

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