diff --git a/google-cloud-bigtable/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/bigtable/data/v2/stub/metrics/BuiltinMetricsTracer.java b/google-cloud-bigtable/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/bigtable/data/v2/stub/metrics/BuiltinMetricsTracer.java
index d4e27ff2c..14a112b27 100644
--- a/google-cloud-bigtable/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/bigtable/data/v2/stub/metrics/BuiltinMetricsTracer.java
+++ b/google-cloud-bigtable/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/bigtable/data/v2/stub/metrics/BuiltinMetricsTracer.java
@@ -67,7 +67,6 @@ class BuiltinMetricsTracer extends BigtableTracer {
   // Stopwatch is not thread safe so this is a workaround to check if the stopwatch changes is
   // flushed to memory.
   private final Stopwatch serverLatencyTimer = Stopwatch.createUnstarted();
-  private boolean serverLatencyTimerIsRunning = false;
   private final Object timerLock = new Object();
 
   private boolean flowControlIsDisabled = false;
@@ -163,9 +162,8 @@ public void attemptStarted(Object request, int attemptNumber) {
     }
     if (!flowControlIsDisabled) {
       synchronized (timerLock) {
-        if (!serverLatencyTimerIsRunning) {
+        if (!serverLatencyTimer.isRunning()) {
           serverLatencyTimer.start();
-          serverLatencyTimerIsRunning = true;
         }
       }
     }
@@ -198,9 +196,8 @@ public void onRequest(int requestCount) {
       // On request is only called when auto flow control is disabled. When auto flow control is
       // disabled, server latency is measured between onRequest and onResponse.
       synchronized (timerLock) {
-        if (!serverLatencyTimerIsRunning) {
+        if (!serverLatencyTimer.isRunning()) {
           serverLatencyTimer.start();
-          serverLatencyTimerIsRunning = true;
         }
       }
     }
@@ -219,10 +216,9 @@ public void responseReceived() {
     // latency is measured between afterResponse and responseReceived.
     // In all the cases, we want to stop the serverLatencyTimer here.
     synchronized (timerLock) {
-      if (serverLatencyTimerIsRunning) {
+      if (serverLatencyTimer.isRunning()) {
         totalServerLatencyNano.addAndGet(serverLatencyTimer.elapsed(TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS));
         serverLatencyTimer.reset();
-        serverLatencyTimerIsRunning = false;
       }
     }
   }
@@ -235,9 +231,8 @@ public void afterResponse(long applicationLatency) {
       // received. If flow control is disabled but requestLeft is greater than 0,
       // also start the timer to count the time between afterResponse and responseReceived.
       synchronized (timerLock) {
-        if (!serverLatencyTimerIsRunning) {
+        if (!serverLatencyTimer.isRunning()) {
           serverLatencyTimer.start();
-          serverLatencyTimerIsRunning = true;
         }
       }
     }
@@ -324,11 +319,10 @@ private void recordAttemptCompletion(@Nullable Throwable status) {
     // If the attempt failed, the time spent in retry should be counted in application latency.
     // Stop the stopwatch and decrement requestLeft.
     synchronized (timerLock) {
-      if (serverLatencyTimerIsRunning) {
+      if (serverLatencyTimer.isRunning()) {
         requestLeft.decrementAndGet();
         totalServerLatencyNano.addAndGet(serverLatencyTimer.elapsed(TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS));
         serverLatencyTimer.reset();
-        serverLatencyTimerIsRunning = false;
       }
     }