John Isner, who won his two Davis Cup matches against France last weekend in Monte Carlo and is playing the U.S. Men’s Clay Courts this week in Houston, will pull out of next week’s ATP Masters 1000 event in Monte Carlo. “I will go back home [to Florida after Houston] and work with my coach, Craig Boynton,” Isner told reporters. “I need to get in better shape if I want to do good in these next two majors coming up and Masters events [in Madrid and Rome]. I need to be in better shape, put my head down, go back to work and get my body right.”
Isner, who has beaten three players in the Top 6 in the last two months—Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga—believes his game has advanced leaps and bounds. “I feel like I’m a much better player. I’m a more improved player, I’m a more confident player; to compete at this level and do well you have to be confident that’s what I have on my side. I know confidence can come and go and I think I proved that throughout the course of 2012 so far. I think that match against Roger in Switzerland certainly I played close to my highest level on clay, away with 7,500 people cheering against us; I played the right way and I kind of realized at that point that’s how I need to play. I’ve tried to stay engaged I’d like to think I’m sort of a nightmare to play.”
During Davis Cup, Isner cheered on fellow former Georgia Bulldog Bubba Watson, who won the Masters golf tournament.