2012 French Open Preview: John Isner, America's Best Hope

John Isner is the highest ranked American on the men's tour. As of the May 14 rankings, the big server currently sits just above Mardy Fish in the 10th spot.

Many feel as though Isner has a reasonable chance of making the French Open's quarterfinals as suggested by the fact that the World No. 10 is generally considered to be the eighth favorite in the outright winner's market for the event, at least according to various sportsbooks (ie. bet365).

However, when you examine Isner, his clay-court results and his game, there is little reason to have much faith in him heading into the clay court Grand Slam.

Isner is already 27 years old, and he is hardly a Grand Slam guru. Only one time has the American actually seen the quarterfinal round of a Grand Slam, and that was at his home event last fall.

At the French Open in the past, Isner has not done much at all, as a third-round appearance in 2010 remains his best finish to date. He is very inexperienced in the tournament as this year will mark just his fourth entry into the clay court Slam's main draw.

Last year, unseeded, he did not get much luck as he drew Rafael Nadal in the first round. Tennis fans will remember that he almost shocked the Spaniard in that contest.

However, there's no good reason to believe in Isner as a prospective quarterfinalist at the upcoming French Open. If he were a Grand Slam contender then by now we would have seen more success out of him at Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the US Open—tournaments where his game is much more conducive to success.

Isner does have a couple appearances in clay court finals as he qualified for the ATP Houston championship match earlier this season and for the ATP Belgrade final in 2010. However, those are both small-stage events and Isner lost both of those finals.

Some might have faith in Isner's clay-court abilities due to his defeat of Roger Federer on the surface earlier this season in Davis Cup play. However, the Davis Cup isn't where Federer typically plays his best tennis, and the result was still just one match.

Isner stands 6'9" and his biggest weapon is his serve, a strength that makes him a factor in any match he participates in. However, when he has trouble breaking serve he often ends up in tiebreakers and it's not unusual for Isner to play in very long matches. The most obvious example was the first round fiasco at Wimbledon 2010, but there are several other long matches in his Grand Slam history that he has participated in.

Those long matches hurt his chances of going on deep runs in Grand Slams because by the time he's made the third or fourth round, he's often quite fatigued after having played so many games.

I also don't like that Isner is in the ATP Nice draw this week as the top seed. With the first-round bye he only needs to win four matches for the title, but the true contenders for Grand Slams usually take the week off before the start of a major in order to better ensure that they are rested for the fortnight ahead.

The message I take away from that is that Isner is not too serious about going on a run at Roland Garros and I'd be very surprised to see him in the quarters and mildly surprised to see him in the round of 16. I think Richard Gasquet, Stanislas Wawrinka and Janko Tipsarevic are players who have better chances of making the quarters at Roland Garros—three players considered to be greater underdogs in the tournament than Isner (source: bet365 betting odds).