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  • Sony Ericsson First Round Preview: Gael Monfils vs. John Isner

    3/26/08 5:26 PM | Ricky Dimon
    - It will be a rematch of John Isner's fifth and final third-set tiebreaker win in Washington, D.C. last summer when the American meets Gael Monfils on Thursday. The winner gets the first chance to continue Roger Federer's slump.

    Gael Monfils and John Isner will do battle in marquee first-round encounter at the Pacific Life Open on Thursday. Their last meeting came seven months and has to remain fresh in each player's mind, so the Frenchman will certainly be out for revenge this week. Isner's magical, drama-filled run to the Legg Mason Classic final culminated with a 6-7(4), 7-6(1), 7-6(2) victory over Monfils that last two hours and 27 minutes and featured no breaks of serve until the final two games of the third set. Monfils broke Isner at 5-5, but just when it looked like all his luck was finally gone, Isner broke right back to take it to a decisive tiebreaker, Isner's fifth in five matches.

    It's hard to like Monfils' chances of returning the favor to Isner this time around. The talented 21-year-old is just now starting to make his comeback from a knee injury kept him out of last year's U.S. Open. After a brief return in mid-September, it sidelined him for the rest of 2008 and prevented him from playing at this season's Australian Open. Monfils finally made his return earlier this month in Dubai, where he promptly lost to Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-2 in just 53 minutes. He dropped his first match at the Pacific Life Open to Mario Ancic by the exact same score, so needless to say, the road to recovery is slow-going for Monfils.

    Isner is not on fire like he was last summer, but he is still in decent form, brining a mediocre 4-5 match record with him to Miami. It could, however, be better. The 6’9’’ American has already lost two matches in which he not only advanced to third-set tiebreakers, but also blew match points in the process (to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in San Jose and Jurgen Melzer in Memphis). Most recently Isner took out Simone Bolelli in a third-set tiebreaker in Indian Wells before falling to Nikolay Davydenko in straight sets.

    With Monfils less than 100 percent and Isner more than capable of never letting his opponent get into any kind of groove thanks to his massive serve, the American has the edge in this contest. Still, considering how neck-and-neck Isner's matches always are and how few breaks of serve occur, at the very least this one should be a close match.

    The winner advances to play No. 1 Roger Federer on Saturday night.

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