Fish's Fresh Perspective

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ATLANTA—On Tuesday evening, two-time tournament champion Mardy Fish began his farewell tour by facing off against Dudi Sela in the first round at the BB&T Atlanta Open. It was Fish’s first tennis match this summer, and only his second match in the last two years.

Fish, who is currently ranked outside of the Top 1,000 but entered the tournament using his protected ranking, lost the match 6-4, 6-4 in one hour and 49 minutes.

The box score says Fish served five aces and three double faults, was broken three times, and only converted one of his eight break points. But this match was about so much more than statistics. This match was about a 33-year-old husband and father conquering his demons and going out on his own terms.

Fish, who will also play in Cincinnati this summer before retiring at the U.S. Open, has spent most of the past three years battling an anxiety disorder that took him away from tennis during the peak of his career. Due to incessant panic attacks, there were plenty of days when the former Top 10 player couldn’t even get out of bed or leave the house, let alone pick up a racquet and play for almost two hours in front of a big crowd on a sweltering July day.

So, while Fish still has a pro’s desire to win—as his constant on-court grimaces of frustration showcased on Tuesday—he now has something even more important: Perspective.

“Obviously I didn’t play well,” Fish said after the match. “I had a lot of chances, but he came up with a lot of good serves. But there's a lot more to break down than just the match.

“This sport, my job, was taken so abruptly from me. It took me a long time to get my life back and I have different goals now than I did a couple of years ago.”

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Fish’s goals now are to savor his final few opportunities to play the sport he loves, to help remove the stigma surrounding mental illness, and to hopefully inspire others who are suffering from similar ailments.

“When I was going through a lot of it, I didn't have a ton of people I could look at as success stories in sports,” he said. “So I felt that it was important to raise awareness about mental health and anxiety disorders and depression.”

Fish has a lot of support in his corner these days, including his wife Stacey, his one-year-old son Braxton, and his old friend Andy Roddick, who he will play doubles with on Wednesday. On Tuesday evening, Roddick was right there next to Stacey in the stands, biting his nails nervously as his former Davis Cup teammate took the court against Sela.

Though he couldn’t help out on the court in this match, Roddick did find another way to offer assistance—when Fish requested that his trainer get more socks because his were so drenched mid-match, Roddick actually took the socks off of his own feet and passed them to Fish.

Fish was grateful for the gesture, but promptly tossed them out—he figured they couldn’t be that much drier than his own considering how much Roddick was known to sweat when he was a player.

Roddick and Fish attempted to get a wild card into the U.S. Open last year to play doubles, but were denied because Roddick was retired and no longer enrolled in the doping protocol. At the time, both were afraid that was going to be Fish’s last opportunity to play.

“I'm so glad that he's getting this opportunity,” Roddick said. “It was so hard to watch what he went through without people fully understanding what he was going through.”

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It’s taken a lot of work both mentally and physically, but Fish has gotten himself into good enough shape to play competitive singles and doubles this summer against the best players in the world.

“He can still play,” Roddick said. “Just seeing him in practice this week, he can still play.”

Roddick is right. While Fish’s game was understandably rusty on Tuesday, there were plenty of glimpses of the effortless power and movement that helped the American climb all the way to No. 7 in the world back in 2011.

But, at the end of the day, if more forehands go out than in this summer, Fish will still be able to hold his head high.

“I'd love to win some matches, but that's not in the forefront of my mind,” Fish said. I've learned a ton from everything. Just trying to get through it, and beat it, and help as many people as I can while I do it.”

According to the score, Fish lost on Tuesday. But really, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.