Posted by Peter Bodo, TENNIS.com
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- It was a great day for Serbian tennis in the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells Sunday, but since there's a resurrection theme to Easter Sunday for many people, let's not write Mardy Fish entirely out of the script. He was the main story of this satisfying and bracingly competitive tournament.
Fish, the 26-year-old silver medalist in singles at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, had an amazing run in the desert, counting upsets on a present and recent world No. 1 (Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt, respectively), as well as top 10ers Nikolay Davydenko and David Nalbandian. And he gave a good account of himself in the Pac Life championship match against the best player in the world at the moment, Novak Djokovic.
You might wonder, why here, why now? The answer is pretty simple, although it comes in a couple of different parts that all come under one thematic roof: Fish returned to his roots at Indian Wells. He went back to the game that carried him to his best ranking ever in 2004 (No. 17), and he did it by getting back together with the coach who helped take him there, Kelly Jones.
As Fish said after his quarterfinal win over Nalbandian, "You know, I'm never going to beat them [Hewitt, Nalbandian, et al.], break serve against them just playing from the baseline and trying to stay solid. … I kind of maybe got away from my ultimate game plan, which is to stay aggressive, serve-and-volley some, and try to, you know, take first ball strikes and things like that, not give anybody any rhythm is the key. And, I got away from that. I guess I'm back doing it now."
These days, it takes a fair amount of courage to embrace that philosophy, because tennis is dominated by great defenders armed with ultrapowerful rackets who are in the habit of using only as much offense as they need. The formula works; these days, medium to slow courts are in vogue and a universal, all-purpose style is emerging. Tennis has never been better -- I'm convinced of that. But it has never had less stylistic variety.
One thing Fish proved with his dashing, swashbuckling game is that when everybody plays in a similar way, taking a player out of that comfort zone can be effective, as well as unnerving. It's a high-risk undertaking, to be sure, and anyone who doesn't need to do it might be better off taking his chances by hoeing the all-court party line. The thing is, Fish doesn't have the tools to win that way (his forehand is inconsistent, his movement isn't great). But he does have a game that can take away an opponent's time, put him under pressure, and -- in its most effective manifestation -- overpower him.
As Federer said, "The guy's been top 20 before, and he's had big matches before. … We know how good Mardy can be."
It's great to see that Fish now remembers as well.
Peter Bodo
