Isner falls to del Potro in quarterfinal

NEW YORK — John Isner doubled over and rested his elbows on his knees. He grimaced. He shook his head.

He looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was: falling further and further behind against Juan Martin del Potro in muggy, energy-robbing heat at the U.S. Open.

Isner’s bid to become the first American man in a dozen years to get to the final four at Flushing Meadows ended Tuesday with a 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-2 loss in Arthur Ashe Stadium to No. 3 seed del Potro, the Argentine who won the 2009 championship.

The temperature, more than 32 C, made things uncomfortable across the 3 1/2-hour match. So did the humidity, at about 50 per cent. Those kinds of conditions were a problem for Roger Federer when he was upset by 55thranked John Millman a night earlier, and Isner had all kinds of trouble, too – certainly more than del Potro did.

Things got so bad around the site that the tournament suspended junior matches for a few hours in the afternoon. The U.S. Tennis Association invoked its new extreme heat policy, which allows men to take a 10-minute break after the third set, but that clearly didn’t help Isner, who quickly trailed 3-0 in the fourth.

This has been something of a breakthrough season at age 33 for Isner, including two hardcourt titles and a run to his first Grand Slam semifinal, which happened at Wimbledon in July. He followed that up by getting to the quarterfinals in New York for the first time since 2011; no one from the U.S. has made it past this stage at this tournament since Andy Roddick in 2006, three years after he became the country’s most recent male champion at any major.

But del Potro presented all sorts of problems. His serve is almost as imposing as Isner’s, while other elements of del Potro’s game – returns and, most notably, his thunderous forehand, which often clocks in at more than 161 km/h – are superior.

Del Potro will next play either top-seeded Rafael Nadal or No. 9 Dominic Thiem in the semifinals on Friday. Nadal and Thiem squared off later Tuesday night. They were playing a fifth and deciding set at The Citizen’s press deadline.