Earlier Wednesday, former top-10 player Mardy Fish withdrew from the U.S. Open, the latest setback in his bid to make a comeback on tour after dealing with heart issues. The U.S. Tennis Association said the 31-year-old American, who grew up in Vero Beach, cited “personal reasons” for his withdrawal. The draw for the year’s last Grand Slam tournament is today, and play is scheduled to begin Monday.
Just two years since he surged to the highest ranking of his career, No. 7 in the world, the 31-year-old athlete said that he "sort of questioned ... if there's still that sort of fire and drive that you need" to continue on the professional tour after losing his first match at the Open tune-up tournament in Mason, Ohio.
"I've come a very, very long way," he said in Ohio, but admitted that it has "been a very slow process.” “I think there's going to be some sort of assessment period. With all these problems I've had, health-wise, I left the game in the top 10 in the world; that's pretty hard to deal with. It was very, very hard to get there and to stay there for a while, make the World Tour Finals [in 2011] and do all those cool things.”
He went on to add, "It's been very hard and very challenging to know I had really no control over it. And to sit here 12 months away from playing really good tennis, some of the best tennis of my career, that will challenge you mentally, for sure."
Fish made another attempt at Open preparation in Winston-Salem, winning a first-round match in that event before retiring with heat stroke in the third set of his second match against Jarkko Nieminen on Tuesday. Fish has played only eight matches on the ATP World Tour in 2013, going 3-5. He skipped all of the Grand Slam tournaments this season while entering only five other events on the main tour.
In March 2012, he had experienced a racing heart following a match in Key Biscayne, but was cleared to resume play weeks later. He advanced to the fourth round of both Wimbledon and last year's U.S. Open. Fish reached the fourth round at the U.S. Open following his victory over Gilles Simon, which set up an anticipated duel with Roger Federer, but withdrew saying it was for "precautionary measures" on doctor's orders. He said, "probably at 3:30 a.m., I knew I had some issues" and sought out psychiatric help. Fish missed about two and a half months earlier last season because of an accelerated heartbeat.
Asked then whether his heart or mind is the source of greater problems, Fish replied: "It's a little bit of both. A lot of it's mental, what I went through, and obviously a little bit of it was physical, too. I can't say it any differently than: It's just going to be a day-to-day thing right now."
Fish took his withdrawal to his Twitter feed, which carried this message Wednesday: “Friends, unfortunately my health won’t allow me to compete this year at the US Open. Thank you for all your support.”
© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
