Sam Duvall’s phone has been ringing for the past three days. As John Isner’s agent, he is becoming as big a target as the man he represents.
Isner’s part in the tennis match that has broken every record is such that companies from across the world want to be associated with him. The fact that the story stretched over three days at Wimbledon, the most prestigious tournament in world tennis, helped enormously because every interruption added to the media interest and embellished Isner’s marketability.
To add to his list of records, there were 19 requests for television interviews after his victory — more than for Roger Federer after he won the title last year. Isner said that he would do five of them but would have run out of words by that time. He appeared in a five-minute slot on NBC’s Today programme yesterday morning, which is as big as it gets. The match was also shown on Wednesday afternoon at New York’s Rockefeller Centre on giant TV screens.
Who would not want to have a part of Isner? A 6ft 9in epitome of the gentle giant, soft spoken, polite, his hands are so huge that they swallow yours when you shake them. His principal sponsors are Nike, for clothes, and Prince, his racket. And the one that he cherishes as much as those is for Vita Coco, coconut water that he swears by.
Mr Duvall, who works for Lagardère Unlimited, the Paris-based company that is seeking a defining stake in tennis management, said: “We’ve had requests from all sorts of companies, those in London, in the US, Fortune 500 companies and some I’ve never heard of, all of whom want to do business.
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“A lot of them want to put their patch on his sleeve but we can’t accommodate that because of the other deals he has. This is a massive thing for John. We always knew the potential that he had and it is about being smart and coming up with the right balance of deals for him.”
While Isner, ranked 19th in the world, can benefit financially, spare a thought for Nicolas Mahut, ranked 148th. He will return to the ATP Challenger Tour in an attempt to pick up the points required to qualify for another major.
The Frenchman was not expected to sign any new deals, according to tennis insiders yesterday — just another example of the fine line between victory and defeat.