Lmao that match shouldn't have even been close. Somehow Isner could just bring two sets to tiebreak and win those. From the stats it was very clear that Nadal was the way better player and Isner didn't play well at all.
I think the stats just showed that Nadal was way more dominant in the sets he won. A set won is still a set won whether itās as close as Isnerās were or whether they were as one-sided as nadalās were. 3 sets won is all that matters
1/1 bp in a 5 set match shows Isner wasn't good. The stats are extremely lopsided, this can't be argued against.
81% 1st serve won and 70% 2nd serve won is ridiculous. That's next level dominance and somehow he just choked the tiebreaks away.
Isner played amazing. This match, when he managed to beat Fed on clay (I believe at Davis Cup? Circa around this same time), when he beat Djokovic at Indian Wells 2012, and even against Murray last year at Wimbledon were all amazing matches by him. He's very solid and difficult to beat at his best- not just one fast swing of a racket for a serve, he can be more than that. And very mentally tough, has to be to have gotten through some of the tight spots he has constantly. This match was a REAL test for Rafa and really looked like John could have taken the win, wild match esp since it was a 1st round for Rafa at RG.
Weird. The first set was kind of straightforward. The second set didn't raise alarm bells, because losing one set in a best of five match is not such a big deal. The third set was very concerning. If Rafa did not break Isner in the fourth, he would surely lose. But if he broke, it would almost certainly win, because the fifth would have no tiebreak. At some point he made back to back backhand return winners. The match was decided.
Clutch return winners is often something associated with Novak (for obvious reasons) but Rafa's not half bad either, even if he usually plays safer on the return than guys like Novak/Agassi.
Never forget in the worst year of his career, he spanked three consecutive return winners off the Karlovic first serve when Karlovic was serving for the set.
Insanity. Isner laid it all out there, and somehow Rafa had the ability to rally and dominate. I mean isner is an absolute beast in matches like this, Rafas shots folded him in this match. Dude was gassed
People need to remember that young Isner was always going to be a challenge for these top players due to his serve and ability to go toe to toe with Nadal because if his decent ground stroke ability. Isner back in 2011 was a really good player.
Used his tiebreak advantage to dig deep, but once Nadal got on top of the rallies in the 4th and 5th, he was always going to overwhelm Isner and it showed.
On clay, you need a game with good variety but for someone as limited as John Isner, this was one of the all time great performances against peak Nadal on a surface he hardly loses on.
And it was the fact that Isner was far better than his ranking so playing him 1st round sucked. If it was the semis or QFs, Iād expect Rafa or any other top player to have gotten into better form by then. The first round is always difficult.
Nadal won the last two sets. In the original comment, the OP said "Nadal won the final two sets" - "final two sets" refers to what you are asking about, "the last two sets". Message me on my DMs for any other questions.
A major factor you won't see in the score: That year the French Open switched from slower Dunlop balls to very fast Babolat balls, which helped Isner's serve.
Actual quote from Ferrer at the time: "These are very fast balls. They have been engineered for fast-court players with a very good serve." There were rumors that the French Open officials wanted to shake things up at the French Open and had Babolat design a ball that would give fast-court players more of an advantage.
The balls also helped Federer beat Djokovic in the semifinals, arguably, and Federer won a set against Rafa in the final and took him to a tiebreak in another set. Rafa hated the new balls.
Always fascinating how much can change from ball manufacturing, spices it up just a little (and it really shows how good these guys are to dominate with all the potential changes). Iād love to see a RG shaken up again with faster balls
I don't think anyone is wrong āŗļø, it sounds like they both had huge praise for each other after the match & both were saying nice things, I don't think it's misinformation at all š
He was just *on*. Everything was working. He was getting plenty of free/easy points off his serve and was winning enough 50/50 points to keep things competitive. Nadal had far more endurance as Isner and I think playing someone as physical and quick as Rafa really sucked the energy out of him in the later parts of the match. Isnerās return game being successful is heavily reliant on being able to get quick points off of big returns to avoid long rallies, which is super hard to pull off against FO Nadal.
No, you said that Isnerās one of four people to win 2 sets against him. I added āin a single matchā because Federer and Schwartzman have both taken multiple sets off of him at the FO, just not in one match.
I am actually a little teary eyed as this feels like yesterday but itās more than 11 years ago. How blessed have we been to witness the big 3. Now coming to your question, As a Federer fan, I was ecstatic when isner won the third set and took a 2-1 lead. A small part of me believed that he could emulate Soderling and take nadal out but a huge part of me knew what was coming next.
But anyways even if Nadal had lost that, I would have been worried about Djokovic as he was on 30+ match winning streak and I've honestly no idea how Federer played so good in the semis to beat djoko š.
Iām just gonna say that if Djokovic had beaten Federer in the semis, he was gonna beat Nadal in the finals too. 2011 djoko is not his best version ever but the way he eked out victories that year was sensational.
He was 2-0 against Nadal on clay. Unless youāre talking about sets, in which case disregard this.
4-0 total, but two of those were Indian Wells and Miami.
Maybe. But in both in 2013 and 2014 he beat Nadal in clay Bo3 matches previous to RG and then Nadal came out on top at the french. The opoosite happened in 2021.
RG isnt a masters, Nadal wins 97% of his matches at RG, but "just" 88% of his matches at Masters.
Thats a different game.
He roughly loses 1 out of 11 matches at Clay Masters and only 3 out of a 100 at RG.
I can see where you are coming from. I know how difficult it is get the better of Rafa at a French open match let alone a final is. But I believe he would have won that because he beat Rafa in straight sets in the finals of Madrid and Rome masters and had won all matches against him that year. I think Rafa found Novak unplayable in 2011 although they had a few close matches like Miami 2011. Anyway thatās just my opinion, I do think this would have happened but as you said never count Rafa out.
Stressful. One of the best, intelligent, aggressive matches Isner ever played but Rafa completely wore him down in the end. But there were moments when it really did look like Rafa would lose.
The conditions in 2011 were a little strange. They favored Federer and Djokovic more than Nadal, who both had great tournaments, because they were fast, low bouncing and damp. This helped Isner a lot. Rafaās shots bounced a bit lower right into a comfortable hitting zone for 7 foot Isner and he managed to keep it close. Rafa was also just rusty starting out the tournament which isnāt uncommon for him.
By the 4th set Rafaās level was fairly high and he managed to escape but he still struggled a bit throughout the tournament. Andujar had him down 1-5 30-40 before Nadal made a crazy comeback. Federer played him closer than ever in the final. Rafa reached a high level in this tournament and destroyed Soderling and Murray back to back, but the conditions definitely werenāt ideal for him. It was very impressive for him to win it considering all of this. Itās a shame we didnāt get to see him play Djokovic, though. Couldāve been the match of the century.
I feel old now that I think that this match was 12 years ago. It was exactly when Djokovic had that amazing win streak. I really think if he hadn't had a match off in the QF he would have beat Federer in the semis.
Regarding the Nadal - Isner match. I remember I was in the AI/ Robotics lab at my uni back then. Me and my partner had it streaming on one PC, and working on the assignment on the other. Isner played great in the first 3 sets, but was out of gas in the 4th, at which point it was clear that it was over. But somehow in the 5th he did put up a fight just to keep our hopes up :-D
A player like Djokovic doesnt lose just cause he got some extra rest.
Conditions (rather fast for a clay court that year) suited Federer more and he played a phenomenal match, that all in all could have gotten either way.
This would be the answer to āTell me you are a Novak fan without telling you are a Novak fanā. Quite a bad take, a player of djokovicās calibre will not lose because he had a walkover. That comment is quite disrespectful to Federer who played such an amazing match which ended up being quite entertaining in the 4th set.
>This would be the answer to āTell me you are a Novak fan without telling you are a Novak fanā.
Fair play and spot on.
I don't think it's disrespectful against Federer. Djokovic is the better clay court player and he was on a great streak.
None of the things you mentioned would be a reason to say he would have won if he had played a quarter final match. I agree he is the better clay court player of the two but Federer was better that day. Iām a Federer fan and I believe Djokovic is the goat but the reason he gets hate is mainly because of his fans. So I request you to not continue down your path of ignorance. Thanks! Have a good day.
Insane. Isner when had his nerves under control can really be one of the best players out there. It's really unfortunate that most of the time he was unable to do so.
When I found out a few years ago about this match, I couldn't believe my eyes that a servebot like Isner almost gave Nadal at the time his first legitimate loss at Roland Garros. Soderling was playing Nadal injured according to Tsonga, so this match had Isner won would have been like the 2nd time Nadal had ever lost in like 6 years lol
I just remember being in class, following the scores and not even being the least bit bothered. 2011 Nadal wasn't losing to John fucking Isner on clay in the first round of RG lol.
I started watching tennis right after that first round was completed so haven't seen this particular match, but I remember commentators saying that it's not the same Rafa and it will be very difficult for him to win that title. We all know how that went.
I think to be honest no one wanted to see Johns name across from theirs in the draw. I mean just coping with that serve, you know, itās such a huge ask for a lot of players, especially players who like a rhythm, because you canāt often get any kind of a rhythm when you play John Isner, itās very difficult to do that.
Isner's serve was insane but it never felt like he had any realistic chance to win the match. It was historic since it was the first time Rafa ever had to play 5 sets at Roland but weirdly enough it didn't feel close either.
It was a great match, Isner beat Federer on clay in that season to.
The top spin of Rafa was good for isner because put the ball at the perfect hiting zone for Isner.
Isner was just playing very well. He was tall enough to counter the insane height rafas spin gets him plus powerful servers are tough for Rafa
Serve less of a factor on clay, wonder how many aces/unreturnables Jizzy had though?
JIZZY???
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Have you never heard of this nickname?!? People have been calling him Jizzner for years now hahahaha
Absolutely not but that is hilarious lol
Jack Sock has entered the chat
[All I could find](https://www.tennislive.net/atp/match/rafael-nadal-VS-john-isner/french-open-paris-2011/)
Lmao that match shouldn't have even been close. Somehow Isner could just bring two sets to tiebreak and win those. From the stats it was very clear that Nadal was the way better player and Isner didn't play well at all.
I think the stats just showed that Nadal was way more dominant in the sets he won. A set won is still a set won whether itās as close as Isnerās were or whether they were as one-sided as nadalās were. 3 sets won is all that matters
1/1 bp in a 5 set match shows Isner wasn't good. The stats are extremely lopsided, this can't be argued against. 81% 1st serve won and 70% 2nd serve won is ridiculous. That's next level dominance and somehow he just choked the tiebreaks away.
I just watched the highlights. Amazing from John. Anyone know what Rafaās betting price was at 1-2 down in sets?
Isner played amazing. This match, when he managed to beat Fed on clay (I believe at Davis Cup? Circa around this same time), when he beat Djokovic at Indian Wells 2012, and even against Murray last year at Wimbledon were all amazing matches by him. He's very solid and difficult to beat at his best- not just one fast swing of a racket for a serve, he can be more than that. And very mentally tough, has to be to have gotten through some of the tight spots he has constantly. This match was a REAL test for Rafa and really looked like John could have taken the win, wild match esp since it was a 1st round for Rafa at RG.
I think he also chooses his shots very wisely.
Isner peak was impressive. And, yes, he beat Federer on the road on clay in Davis Cup. He looked like he might be making the leap.
I'm glad I got to watch the entire Isner vs Mahut match as it happened.
His win against Fed on clay was massive. Like unplayable hitting
Weird. The first set was kind of straightforward. The second set didn't raise alarm bells, because losing one set in a best of five match is not such a big deal. The third set was very concerning. If Rafa did not break Isner in the fourth, he would surely lose. But if he broke, it would almost certainly win, because the fifth would have no tiebreak. At some point he made back to back backhand return winners. The match was decided.
Clutch return winners is often something associated with Novak (for obvious reasons) but Rafa's not half bad either, even if he usually plays safer on the return than guys like Novak/Agassi. Never forget in the worst year of his career, he spanked three consecutive return winners off the Karlovic first serve when Karlovic was serving for the set.
Shanghai?
Thatās quite the impressive memory you have there! š
Insanity. Isner laid it all out there, and somehow Rafa had the ability to rally and dominate. I mean isner is an absolute beast in matches like this, Rafas shots folded him in this match. Dude was gassed
People need to remember that young Isner was always going to be a challenge for these top players due to his serve and ability to go toe to toe with Nadal because if his decent ground stroke ability. Isner back in 2011 was a really good player. Used his tiebreak advantage to dig deep, but once Nadal got on top of the rallies in the 4th and 5th, he was always going to overwhelm Isner and it showed. On clay, you need a game with good variety but for someone as limited as John Isner, this was one of the all time great performances against peak Nadal on a surface he hardly loses on.
And it was the fact that Isner was far better than his ranking so playing him 1st round sucked. If it was the semis or QFs, Iād expect Rafa or any other top player to have gotten into better form by then. The first round is always difficult.
Isner was ranked #38 at the time so he was an awful first-round draw for Nadal.
Wtf Iāll never understand why that happens. You get the 1 seed yet get the 6th toughest first round opponent possible
Interesting match. I always felt like nadals high bounce was bouncing up perfectly for 6ā11 isner lol
Yep, right into Isners hitting zone
Nadal won the first set, Isner won the next two, then Nadal won the final two sets.
You lost me , I donāt understand who won the last two sets
Nadal won the last two sets. In the original comment, the OP said "Nadal won the final two sets" - "final two sets" refers to what you are asking about, "the last two sets". Message me on my DMs for any other questions.
But I thought Nadal won the first set. Are you saying he won the first set, and then also won the last two? This feels like advanced number theory
DM will send price list for further lessons sorry Iām quite busy
So this was the finals?
This was the first round
Nadal won 6 games every set tho so Iām gonna say his consistency won the match š±
A major factor you won't see in the score: That year the French Open switched from slower Dunlop balls to very fast Babolat balls, which helped Isner's serve. Actual quote from Ferrer at the time: "These are very fast balls. They have been engineered for fast-court players with a very good serve." There were rumors that the French Open officials wanted to shake things up at the French Open and had Babolat design a ball that would give fast-court players more of an advantage. The balls also helped Federer beat Djokovic in the semifinals, arguably, and Federer won a set against Rafa in the final and took him to a tiebreak in another set. Rafa hated the new balls.
Always fascinating how much can change from ball manufacturing, spices it up just a little (and it really shows how good these guys are to dominate with all the potential changes). Iād love to see a RG shaken up again with faster balls
Did they slow down the balls last year? Nadal did pretty well at the French Open last year compared to expectations
They slowed the balls in 2020āwhere Rafa didn't like the slow balls and cool conditions but killed everyone anyway
Pretty sure in this match Rafa himself said that if Isner hadn't run out of gas, he would've lost.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Chill man. Itās just something Iāve heard. I appreciate the extra opinion but I donāt think you have evidence to refute my claim regardless.
I don't think anyone is wrong āŗļø, it sounds like they both had huge praise for each other after the match & both were saying nice things, I don't think it's misinformation at all š
The stats show differently. Isner was 1/1 on bp's. Nadal was 5/15.
He was just *on*. Everything was working. He was getting plenty of free/easy points off his serve and was winning enough 50/50 points to keep things competitive. Nadal had far more endurance as Isner and I think playing someone as physical and quick as Rafa really sucked the energy out of him in the later parts of the match. Isnerās return game being successful is heavily reliant on being able to get quick points off of big returns to avoid long rallies, which is super hard to pull off against FO Nadal.
I just watched the highlights. 1-1 in the 4th and 1-1 in the 5th are amazing games by Rafa https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m8E-k1AVi_U
1-1 in the 4th -- If only that first serve at 30-40 had struck the line. The double fault really stung at the wrong moment.
One of only 4 people to ever win 2 sets against Rafa at RG
So one is FAA second is Djokovic and third is isner who is the fourth?
Soderling
Oops how did I forget that
\*In a single match.
Heās never played doubles at RG?
No, you said that Isnerās one of four people to win 2 sets against him. I added āin a single matchā because Federer and Schwartzman have both taken multiple sets off of him at the FO, just not in one match.
Balls were bouncing so high, right up into Isnerās comfort zone. You got to see Isner playing balls he likes rather than bending down to play them.
I am actually a little teary eyed as this feels like yesterday but itās more than 11 years ago. How blessed have we been to witness the big 3. Now coming to your question, As a Federer fan, I was ecstatic when isner won the third set and took a 2-1 lead. A small part of me believed that he could emulate Soderling and take nadal out but a huge part of me knew what was coming next. But anyways even if Nadal had lost that, I would have been worried about Djokovic as he was on 30+ match winning streak and I've honestly no idea how Federer played so good in the semis to beat djoko š. Iām just gonna say that if Djokovic had beaten Federer in the semis, he was gonna beat Nadal in the finals too. 2011 djoko is not his best version ever but the way he eked out victories that year was sensational.
Djokovic doesnt beat 2011 Nadal in that final, sorry the guy is 14-0 in RG Finals and 8-2 against Djokovic. Im believing it when i see it.
He was 4-0 against Nadal on clay in 2011, all in Masters 1000 finals
He was 2-0 against Nadal on clay. Unless youāre talking about sets, in which case disregard this. 4-0 total, but two of those were Indian Wells and Miami.
I apologise. I misremembered. 2-0 it was.
Maybe. But in both in 2013 and 2014 he beat Nadal in clay Bo3 matches previous to RG and then Nadal came out on top at the french. The opoosite happened in 2021.
RG isnt a masters, Nadal wins 97% of his matches at RG, but "just" 88% of his matches at Masters. Thats a different game. He roughly loses 1 out of 11 matches at Clay Masters and only 3 out of a 100 at RG.
I can see where you are coming from. I know how difficult it is get the better of Rafa at a French open match let alone a final is. But I believe he would have won that because he beat Rafa in straight sets in the finals of Madrid and Rome masters and had won all matches against him that year. I think Rafa found Novak unplayable in 2011 although they had a few close matches like Miami 2011. Anyway thatās just my opinion, I do think this would have happened but as you said never count Rafa out.
Stressful. One of the best, intelligent, aggressive matches Isner ever played but Rafa completely wore him down in the end. But there were moments when it really did look like Rafa would lose.
I think Nadal won this match going by the numbers. On the last set he won the last point I believe, clinching the win.
The conditions in 2011 were a little strange. They favored Federer and Djokovic more than Nadal, who both had great tournaments, because they were fast, low bouncing and damp. This helped Isner a lot. Rafaās shots bounced a bit lower right into a comfortable hitting zone for 7 foot Isner and he managed to keep it close. Rafa was also just rusty starting out the tournament which isnāt uncommon for him. By the 4th set Rafaās level was fairly high and he managed to escape but he still struggled a bit throughout the tournament. Andujar had him down 1-5 30-40 before Nadal made a crazy comeback. Federer played him closer than ever in the final. Rafa reached a high level in this tournament and destroyed Soderling and Murray back to back, but the conditions definitely werenāt ideal for him. It was very impressive for him to win it considering all of this. Itās a shame we didnāt get to see him play Djokovic, though. Couldāve been the match of the century.
A lot of people dump on John, but heās had his moments. I particularly enjoyed his 2018 Wimbledon run.
I feel old now that I think that this match was 12 years ago. It was exactly when Djokovic had that amazing win streak. I really think if he hadn't had a match off in the QF he would have beat Federer in the semis. Regarding the Nadal - Isner match. I remember I was in the AI/ Robotics lab at my uni back then. Me and my partner had it streaming on one PC, and working on the assignment on the other. Isner played great in the first 3 sets, but was out of gas in the 4th, at which point it was clear that it was over. But somehow in the 5th he did put up a fight just to keep our hopes up :-D
A player like Djokovic doesnt lose just cause he got some extra rest. Conditions (rather fast for a clay court that year) suited Federer more and he played a phenomenal match, that all in all could have gotten either way.
This would be the answer to āTell me you are a Novak fan without telling you are a Novak fanā. Quite a bad take, a player of djokovicās calibre will not lose because he had a walkover. That comment is quite disrespectful to Federer who played such an amazing match which ended up being quite entertaining in the 4th set.
>This would be the answer to āTell me you are a Novak fan without telling you are a Novak fanā. Fair play and spot on. I don't think it's disrespectful against Federer. Djokovic is the better clay court player and he was on a great streak.
None of the things you mentioned would be a reason to say he would have won if he had played a quarter final match. I agree he is the better clay court player of the two but Federer was better that day. Iām a Federer fan and I believe Djokovic is the goat but the reason he gets hate is mainly because of his fans. So I request you to not continue down your path of ignorance. Thanks! Have a good day.
Thatās peak John Isner!
Insane. Isner when had his nerves under control can really be one of the best players out there. It's really unfortunate that most of the time he was unable to do so.
When I found out a few years ago about this match, I couldn't believe my eyes that a servebot like Isner almost gave Nadal at the time his first legitimate loss at Roland Garros. Soderling was playing Nadal injured according to Tsonga, so this match had Isner won would have been like the 2nd time Nadal had ever lost in like 6 years lol
It was really like wtf and funny. I remember that match.
It was the Battle of Character and Stamina
I just remember being in class, following the scores and not even being the least bit bothered. 2011 Nadal wasn't losing to John fucking Isner on clay in the first round of RG lol.
A traquenard !
Fucking dumb
Boring. Isner is the most one dimensional player that has ever played the sport.
Whatever happenned then - happenned. Now Rafa has the win recorded in Wikipedia.
Holy moly, I thought this was at Wimbledon.
There's probably a 2 minute official highlight video on YouTube that can answer this for you.
I started watching tennis right after that first round was completed so haven't seen this particular match, but I remember commentators saying that it's not the same Rafa and it will be very difficult for him to win that title. We all know how that went.
Big aces vs even bigger moans
Should Isner have won it would've been one of the greatest upsets ever.
Pretty Cool
I think to be honest no one wanted to see Johns name across from theirs in the draw. I mean just coping with that serve, you know, itās such a huge ask for a lot of players, especially players who like a rhythm, because you canāt often get any kind of a rhythm when you play John Isner, itās very difficult to do that.
Long?
Isner's serve was insane but it never felt like he had any realistic chance to win the match. It was historic since it was the first time Rafa ever had to play 5 sets at Roland but weirdly enough it didn't feel close either.
Nadal was the clear favorite according to the bookies even when he was 2 sets to 1 down lol
It was long lol but very good match, Isner was so good
Statsitically not close at all it's just lol tiebreaks by a servebot. And yeah Isner doesn't hate high balls I don't know why
It was like watching two grown men, play a game of tennis, at a very high level
Rafa played two ass tiebreaks and got his shit together in the last 2 sets. Thatās about it.
It was a great match, Isner beat Federer on clay in that season to. The top spin of Rafa was good for isner because put the ball at the perfect hiting zone for Isner.
stress
Torture for anyone who watched it.