“Here’s my take,” the teaching pro at my club said this morning as I walked past him. “Mardy Fish is playing the most interesting tennis in the world right now.”
That was an interesting comment in itself, and not just because before this summer I probably would have put it up there with one of the least likely sentences that I would ever hear uttered. It was also interesting because even as Fish has climbed toward his career apex over the last few weeks, I still couldn’t put my finger on exactly what his game was. After listening to our pro, and watching him beat Rafael Nadal today in Cincinnati by the every-bit-as-routine-as-they-sound scores of 6-3, 6-4, I reailzed I was thinking of Fish’s style the wrong way. I couldn’t put my finger on his game, because at the moment he’s playing a bunch of them at once, and they’re all working.
Here are a few of the ways in which Fish won points today:
He hit two crosscourt forehands in a row to push Nadal wide, then eased a ball up the line into the open court, as if it was the simplest thing imaginable. He kicked a second serve wide, got on top of the net, and knocked off a volley. He took a backhand extremely early and on the rise and smacked it up the line; Nadal, despite his speed, had no time to react. Fish took a strong Nadal serve into his body and put his forehand return right on the baseline. To close out the first set, he hit a 132 m.p.h. ace and followed it with a 134 m.p.h. ace. But at set point, he won with defense, sitting back and waiting for a Rafa error. In the match’s final game, when by all rights he should have been tight, Fish began by winning a point with great defense on his forehand. Then he took a swinging backhand out of the air and wrong-footed Nadal. And at match point he again stabbed back a scrambling defensive forehand that, on a day when everything went right for him, fell on the line for one last winner. At one stage Fish led Nadal 24-4 in winners, even while he had committed fewer errors—that's what they call comprehensive.
This was the telltale match of the summer thus far. Fish came in as the man on the rise; Nadal came in as a man surrounded by intimations of decline. The result ratified our suspicions about each of them, and gave Fish the kind of signature top-level win that has been the only thing missing from his résumé over the last year and a half. As for Rafa, this match reminded me of the Wimbledon final. He started slowly and uncertainly and went down a quick break at 1-3. He allowed his opponent to dictate the points through the first set, and he didn’t do much to change that dynamic as the second set started—in the past, Rafa has always been very good at not letting one bad set turn into two. And, as in the Wimbledon final, when Nadal finally did get revved up, at 3-4 in the second, it was his best shot, his forehand, that let him down. At break point, he tried to run around a second serve and hit a forehand, but didn’t get all the way there and ended up floating it into the tape. At Wimbledon, he punched his strings after a similar miss; today he started to, but stopped himself. His fingers were already cut up enough.
Nadal lost in the quarters here last year, to Marcos Baghdatis, and went on to win the U.S. Open. But right now a title defense in New York is looking like a long shot. I thought he played better in his one match in Montreal, even if it was a defeat to Ivan Dodig, than he did in either of his last two matches in Cincy. His shots lacked pop and conviction here, and he seemed to be running in mud at times. He was also fooled on many occasions by the Fish serve. And at the moment when you would have expected Rafa to mount a furious comeback, his biggest weapon wasn’t there for him. It wasn't a good sign, but neither was it surprising, that Nadal was testy in this match. Unlike last week's loss, he couldn't write it off to rust. Now there's one more guy he's going to have to deal with at the majors.
Fish did everything right with his racquet today, and he won points in a variety of ways. But the most telling moment for him, in my opinion, didn’t involve a serve or a ground stroke. It came when Nadal missed a forehand to hand Fish the break at 2-2 in the second set. When the ball landed wide, Fish let out the loudest “Come on!” I’ve ever heard from him. In the past, I’d wondered how much Fish was willing to put himself on the line emotionally against the best guys. Even at Wimbledon against Nadal, he seemed tentative about playing his game, tentative about believing in himself, and he admitted afterward that Nadal’s presence had caused him to get out of his normal serving rhythm and go for too much. This time Fish wasn't tentative, and he didn't overhit; and there was no disbelief in that “Come on!”
Mardy Fish lost a close one to Novak Djokovic last week, and just recorded his first win over Rafael Nadal. The U.S. Open just got a little more interesting.
—Steve Tignor