John Isner crashes out in the opening round at the hands of Alejandro Falla – Wimbledon 2012
A huge upset was witnessed on the opening day of the Wimbledon Championships, as the world number 10, John Isner of the United States, fell to the unseeded Columbian, Alejandro Falla, in the first round battle. The Monday’s contest
witnessed the world number 73, Falla, thrashing the American number one in a five-set thriller, settling the final scores at 6-4, 6-7(7), 3-6, 7-6(7), 7-5, in his favour.
No one expected the hard-hitting American to fall so cheaply at the start of the Grand Slam tournament in London but it was sheer resilience of Falla which forced him to surrender in the marathon battle. High quality tennis was
witnessed from both contenders but some critical misses on part of Isner proved extremely taxing for him in the end.
As he is well known for his big serve, Isner fired 31 cracking aces to his opponent’s court and won 99 out of 121 first serve points in the matchup. He registered merely out of seven break points, whilst Falla converted two of
his five opportunities to come out as the winner. It was a see-saw battle, with a number of major momentum swings been seen in the play. Isner was once on top of his opponent and had a golden opportunity to finish off the contest in the fourth set but he squandered
away some crucial points to let Falla take the better of him.
"I had my chances," admitted Isner after suffering the huge defeat. "It's all on me. Was just not great on my part. I felt fine coming into here. It's just now I get out there sometimes, and lately it's happening quite a lot, [that]
I'm just so clouded. I just can't seem to figure things out. I'm my own worst enemy out there. It's all mental for me, and it's pretty poor on my part."
Falla clinched the opening set to get one up early in the contest but it ignited the rage mode in Isner, who went on a killing spree to reel off the following two sets comprehensively. The Columbian saved a match point at 6-7 in
the fourth set tie-breaker round and levelled the sets score at 2-2. It all came down to the final set of the match and Isner crumbled in the last moments to let Falla fly away with victory at 7-5.
Falla will either play the unseeded Italian, Paolo Lorenzi or the French veteran, Nicolas Mahut, in the second round of the tournament.
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