Isner is enjoying increased fame for a pretty lame reason.
John Isner isn't exactly a contender when it comes to Grand Slam titles but he is a respected player on tour who made a name for himself last year at the US Open when he upset Andy Roddick in the third round. He only has one career ATP title even though he is aged 25 years old but if you asked most people who he was the common answers wouldn't be "the man who upset Roddick at Flushing Meadows" or "the current ATP Auckland title holder".
Instead the common answer would be that he was the last man standing in an 11 hour match at Wimbledon.
Isner has become the flavor of the week for his 'accomplishment' as he's been on the David Letterman show and he threw out the first pitch at a Yankees' game earlier this week.
An argument could be made that Isner is actually being glorified for all the wrong reasons. Instead of putting Isner on a pedestal and saying "There's the man that won the longest match in tennis history" Isner should be given a sidelonged glance.
He's a top 20 player who struggled for hours on end against Mahut, the 148th ranked player in the world who has never been ranked higher than 40th. Mahut has no career singles titles and he has been outside of the top 100 on tour since the February 2009 rankings. For Isner to take 11 hours to beat him simply highlights the American's weaknesses as a tennis player as there's no way anyone else on tour besides the lead-footed Isner would take 69 service games to finally break Mahut's serve.
In fact if you gave the current NCAA tennis champion 69 cracks at Mahut's serve, I'd take -10000 (1/100) that he would be able to do it more than once.
Isner's serve can be as good as his return game can be bad and while he's as smart as Dick Assman to cash in on his questionable fame Isner's going to be a marked on man on tour now as there are tons of players better than Mahut out there who will know how to crack even a top 20 player who only has one trick.