NORCROSS, Georgia (AP)—Mardy Fish beat fellow-American John Isner in the final for the second straight year at the Atlanta Tennis Championships, earning a 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-2 victory Sunday.
Fish, ranked No. 9 in the world, held off two straight match points in the second set to rally from a 5-1 deficit in the tiebreak.
“When you’re in that position, it’s almost over,” Fish said. “I was lucky to get out of it. I played some good points. I don’t think he missed any first serves there. I stuck some returns and put some balls in play.”
Isner was trying to win consecutive events for the first time in his career just as Fish did in 2010 at Newport and Atlanta.
But Isner’s last service game included two double-faults. He committed 29 unforced errors to Fish’s 11 through two sets.
“I didn’t necessarily change anything tactically,” Fish said. “I took care of my serve games a little bit better once I lost serve in the first game of the second.”
After blowing the two match points, Isner couldn’t regain momentum. Losing the point on his serve hurt badly.
“I missed the first serve,” he said. “In hindsight, I probably should’ve served and volleyed on the second serve. I should’ve done that more during the first of the match to begin with. He got it in play, and I went with too big of a backhand and missed it by a lot. You know, he played that point well. And the next points after that, he served two really good serves. Um, but that’s what happens.”
Fish improved to 6-12 in ATP tour finals, 3-1 in his career against Isner. Sunday was the first time he defended a championship successfully.
“It feels great to win here again,” Fish said. “It feels great to start off the summer like I did last year.”
Isner sounded as if he might need a couple of days to get over a chance to win his second straight event.
“I had a match point on my serve,” Isner said. “You can’t ask for much more than that. That’s how it goes. It’s still a good week. I really, really wish I could’ve won this title. It wasn’t to be.”
Matthew Ebden of Australia won his second straight doubles title, teaming this week with Alex Bogomolov Jr., in a 3-6, 7-5, 10-8 super-tiebreaker victory over Matthias Bachinger and Frank Moser of Germany.