John Isner

“A lot of times when I'm confident and relaxed on the court, I'm going to be a pretty tough out. But when I'm not so confident and not so relaxed, I tense up and my balls fall short and everything. It just sort of unravels.”

“There's a lot of times I'll just play too passive and since I'm not going to play defense as well as most guys can, I can't get away with passive play.”

“I think the more matches that I play, the better shape I'm going to get in. That's the best type of fitness you can do.”

“The best part about traveling for work is that it's better than sitting behind a desk!”

“I want to be a top-10 player and I want to win a Grand Slam tournament.”

“It's very important to be rested.”

“I try not to eat too much, but I always get hungry before a match. I make sure I have enough fuel in my body. I'll eat pasta and a little bit of protein usually. I'm pretty much eating a full meal.”

“You're going to lose points and gain points throughout the year.”

“Up until I was a junior at Georgia, I felt that when all was said and done, I'd at least have a college degree to fall back on when tennis was finished.”

“My confidence sort of comes and goes very quickly.”

“My marriage and my career are my two top priorities.”

“My favorite tournament is the U.S. Open because the atmosphere is great.”

“I felt a ton of pressure in '08. A lot of great things were expected of me right out of the gate, and I brought some of that on myself with those great early results. But I wasn't a good enough player to make a run every fourth or fifth tournament. I wasn't as good a player as my ranking indicated.”

“I had no idea I was going to be this tall. Had I known that, I honestly would have stuck to basketball.”

“I grew up in a nice neighborhood in Greensboro, N.C., which is not too big, but definitely not a small town.”

“Sometimes I think the easiest way to introduce what goes into managing the expenses of a tennis career is to take a look at another pro sport and notice some of the differences.”

“Davis Cup is a completely different animal.”

“Tennis is not really a traditional Olympic sport.”

“The good wins are still great, and you are on cloud nine when that happens, but the losses sting.”

“In a tiebreaker, you generally have a lot of adrenaline running through. It's all about just holding your serve, trying to hold two serves at a time, trying to stay ahead in the tiebreaker, constantly put pressure on my opponent.”