Playing in his personal yard on the Dallas Open, John Isner made ATP Tour historical past by changing into the primary man to win 500 tour-level tie-breaks. 

The milestone second got here in Friday’s quarter-finals, throughout a 7-6(8), 7-5 win for the American in opposition to Emilio Gomez. He needed to work onerous for No. 500, saving a set level at 6/7 with a second-serve ace down the T earlier than changing on his third set level of the tie-break.

“I’ve won a lot of tie-breaks in my career, and in the first set I won a big number of them: 500 of them,” he mentioned in his on-court interview in Dallas, drawing cheers from his dwelling crowd. “I’m very glad I didn’t have to win 501.”

Isner’s 500 tie-break wins put him 34 forward of Roger Federer on the Open Era listing, with Pete Sampras (328), Andy Roddick (303), Novak Djokovic (299) and Rafael Nadal (263) additionally within the Top 10.

Asked to elucidate his success in tie-breaks, Isner put it right down to expertise. No one has performed extra tie-breaks than him, with 819 contested in his profession.

“It just comes with a lot of experience, being in that situation. I would love to win matches like Novak does, 6-,1 6-0, but it’s just not my style,” he mentioned with a smile. “Plenty of occasions I reside by the sword, like I’ve this week, and a whole lot of occasions I die by the sword. I take the nice with the dangerous.

“I think something about being at home is calming my nerves in those big situations,” he added, alluding to his good 4-0 tie-break document this week. “I’m very happy, very lucky to have this tournament here.”

No stranger to history-making statistics, Isner turned the ATP Tour’s undisputed ace king final July at Wimbledon, when he handed Ivo Karlovic for essentially the most aces. He has continued so as to add to his tally since then, and has now hit greater than 14,000 aces.