- Sven Tennis • Day 13 • Melbourne • We Heart AO, and Some Bad News
- Rising Tennis Stars Photo Gallery • Auger-Aliassime, Shapovalov, Sinner, Tsitsipas and More
- Australian Open Tennis 2021 Quarantine Off To Ominous Start, 47 Players And Counting Already Impacted
- Sven Tennis • Day 12/13 • Not The Start We All Wanted
- Tennis • Stan Wawrinka, Grigor Dimitrov Headline Melbourne 1 • Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic set for ATP Cup
- Sven Tennis • Day 11/12 • Australian Open • Hotel Room Quarantine
- Sven Tennis • Day 11 • Travel Day #2 • Welcome to Melbourne
- Sven Tennis • Day 11 • Travel Day #1 • Doha to Melbourne
- Sven Tennis • Day 10 • Recovery and Travel Day
- Ymer, Alcaraz Qualify for Australian Open Tennis Main Draw, Join Veterans Stakhovsky and Tomic
- Andy Murray Hit By Covid Ahead Of Australian Open Tennis
- De Minaur Triumphs In Antalya, Hurkacz Holds Off Korda For Delray Beach Tennis
- Sven Tennis • Day 9 • 3rd Round At The Australian Open Tennis Qualifiers
- Bernie Tomic, Dustin Brown, Taro Daniel, and Viktor Troicki Part of Final Round at Australian Open Tennis Qualifying
- Updated Tennis Draws, Results And Order Of Play For Jan. 13th • Antalya Open and Delray Beach
Tennis News • At Western & Southern Open, Big Servers — Isner, Opelka, etc. — Showing No Signs Of Rust
- Updated: August 23, 2020

By Ricky Dimon
Big servers such as John Isner, Reilly Opelka, Milos Raonic, and Kevin Anderson have advanced to the second round of the Cincinnati Masters.
You might suspect that big servers may have somewhat of advantage following five months away from official competition as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. After all, rust is more likely to show up when longer points are played. Players who can consistently end points with one fell swoop, of course, can avoid having to hit an excess amount of forehands, backhands, and volleys.
So far, that has been exactly the case at the Western & Southern Open.
Huge hitters such as John Isner, Reilly Opelka, Milos Raonic, and Kevin Anderson have returned to the court and gone back to the basics to advance at this Masters 1000 event at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Serve. Ace. Service winner. Ace. Serving winner. Hold. Repeat. Etc.
There were a whole lot of aces and holds from Isner on Sunday. The 6’10” American won his first-round match, beating Cincinnati doubles partner Hubert Hurkacz 7-5, 6-4. It is true that Hurkacz also serves big; by comparison, though, Isner’s serve makes the Pole’s seem pedestrian. The world No. 21 doubled Hurkacz’s ace count (10 to five) and saved both of the break points he faced while breaking the world No. 29 twice to prevail in one hour and 39 minutes.

Isner double-faulted only once, won 81 percent of his first-serve points, and won an even more impressive 80 percent of his second-serve points.
Preceding the 16th seed into round two on Saturday were Opelka, Raonic, and Anderson. In another battle between big servers, Sam Querrey was no match for Raonic. The Canadian almost quadrupled Querrey’s ace total (19 to five) while rolling to a 6-4, 6-4 win. Opelka cruised past Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-4, firing 18 aces in only 10 service games. Anderson blasted more aces than everyone — mainly because he actually had to play a final set. The 6’8” South African sent 20 serves clean past Kyle Edmund during a 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-3 success.
Anderson ended up losing easily to Stefanos Tsitsipas on Sunday, but that was hardly a surprise given that Anderson has been struggling physically and was forced to play on back-to-back days after battling Edmund for two hours and 58 minutes.

“I have been playing really well the last few weeks (in practice),” Raonic noted. “Today I’m happy with how I dealt with a lot of things, because there [are] a lot of things out of my control that you can’t mimic in a practice.”
But there is one thing you can mimic anywhere: the serve.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @Dimonator.