Last year, Fish followed up a Newport win with an Atlanta win and this began his steady progress to eventually reach the top ten for the first time in his career.  This year, John Isner, who was the Atlanta finalist last year, hoped to do the same.  While Fish was playing Davis Cup this year, Isner was off winning Newport.  He hoped to follow that up with a win at Atlanta.

And he almost, almost had it.

Fish looked a bit erratic as Isner took the first set with a break.  Isner was even up a break in the second.  However, Fish managed to break back.  There was an odd game where Isner clutched his tummy as if he had cramps of some sort, and he gave that game away, but sought no medical attention.  The match proceeded to a tiebreak where Isner got up 5-1.  Fish got back to 5-4.  Isner was up 6-4, but Fish saved match point to 6-5 and Fish held both his points and eventually secured the set 8-6.

Isner then took a timeout to get his ankle braces redone, a break that lasted some ten minutes.  However, this break didn’t help Isner that much.  Isner got down a break, and despite chances to get the break back, wasn’t able to do it.  He then got down a second break, and that was pretty much it as Fish held 6-2 to defend his title.