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"Believe it or not, I'm in Wisconsin."

It did seem a little hard to believe that John Isner, who in his first year as a professional tennis player has traveled to exotic locales such as Paris, London, Melbourne, New York and Las Vegas, would somehow find his way to Appleton, Wis.

But, as the former Page standout can now attest, that's what life is like when you're trying to make it as a professional tennis player. Mixed with the glamour is the grind. Following those hot streaks are slumps. Fortunes change as frequently as playing surfaces. Players either hop off the wild ride on the tour or learn to accept its twists and turns and strange destinations.

Such as Appleton, Wis.

That's where Isner is this week. It's where his coach, Kelly Jones, is visiting family. Since this week is really the only "off" week Isner will have in the run-up to the U.S. Open, the Greensboro native has made the trek to the Midwest to work with Jones, putting in four-hour practice sessions each day.

"This is sort of like Rocky Balboa training," Isner said. "Just getting away from everything."

The metaphor works except, unlike Rocky, Isner's not a down-and-out athlete in need of redemption. Yes, his singles record this year is 10-16 (7-14 in ATP tour events) and he's in serious danger of dropping out of the top 100 in the world rankings if he doesn't post strong results in the next month. But Isner looks past the wins and losses and sees progress in his game, growth that has sometimes come at the expense of his record.

"I think I'm only going to get better," he said by phone this week.

Isner hopes Jones is part of that process. When Isner burst on the scene, he didn't have a coach. Then the U.S. Tennis Association paired him with Ricardo Acuna. Isner eventually switched to Brandon Wagner, a fellow University of Georgia alumnus. But Isner has since decided he needed someone who was more friend than coach and turned to Jones.

"His track record is great," Isner said. "He used to be No. 1 in the world in doubles, so he knows what he's doing as far as being up at the net."

Net play has been a large part of Isner's training focus this week. Given Isner's size and his serve, getting off the baseline and moving forward more often will be essential to his progress in pro tennis.

"I found myself serving and staying back some and trying to stay back on the grass," Isner said. "I knew I needed to come in, but I didn't feel comfortable doing it."

Actually, Isner didn't feel comfortable anywhere on grass, winning just one of five matches he played on the surface this season. He felt more at ease on the red clay of Europe, usually the bane of an American player. But clay courts are playing faster and grass courts are playing slower, making the bounce of the tennis ball more important to Isner's success.

"The ball is really bouncing up higher into my strike zone (on clay), whereas on grass it kind of skids," he said.

Knowing that now, Isner is eager to try his luck next spring in Europe on clay, and he's hoping to erase the painful memory of his first-round loss in the French Open. There Isner led Juan Antonio Chela, a clay-court expert, two sets to none and had multiple chances to put away Chela in the third. Instead, Isner lost the set and -- after rain delays stretched the match across three days -- the fourth and fifth as well.

First, though, Isner is looking to the current American hard-court season as the chance to regain the form he had last summer, when he made the final of the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington, D.C. It's the surface that offers the high ball bounce his 6-foot-9 frame needs and the high speed that makes Isner's booming serve even more effective.

"Hard courts are my best surface," he said. "I should do well again this summer."

After his stop-over in Appleton, Isner heads to Cincinnati today. He's hoping to get a wild card into the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, one of the elite tournaments of the year. If not, Isner will play in the qualifying for the main draw. That's not an ideal situation, but at this point, what he wants more than anything is matches.

"The main reason I did well last summer was because I had so many matches under my belt," Isner said. "Kelly told me I played like 40 matches or something from the NCAA tournament last year up to the (U.S.) Open. This whole year I've played maybe 20-something matches."

It's a paradoxical situation. Isner needs more match play to win more matches. The only way to get more match play is to &ellipses; win more matches.

He'll have several chances to solve that conundrum. After Cincinnati comes Los Angeles. Then Washington, D.C., again. Then the final U.S. Open tuneup tournament, in New Haven, Conn. Then it's on to New York again.

If all goes well, talk will again start up about Isner's huge potential. If it doesn't, then it's likely back to the Challenger circuit in the fall. That would mean trading places like New York and Paris for Calabasas, Calif., or Champaign, Ill. Isner knows that's a possibility and he doesn't seem too concerned. He knows that to get to where he wants to be in pro tennis he must be willing to go just about anywhere, anyway.

Even to Appleton, Wis.

Contact Jim Young at 373-7016 or jim.young@news-record.com