In what could potentially be the last match victory of his career, Mardy Fish teamed up with Grigor Dimitrov to pull off a substantial doubles upset on Monday at the Citi Open. Fish and Dimitrov saved two match points on Jack Sock’s serve to stun Sock and Vasek Pospisil 6-7(2), 7-6(5), 10-8.
Fish is in Washington, D.C. to do pregame work for the Tennis Channel, so he decided to shoot Dimitrov a text asking the Bulgarian if he wanted to play doubles. The rest is history–if you consider a first-round win at a 500-point tournament as such.
Speaking of history, that’s what Fish’s career will be after three more tournaments–this one included. The 33-year-old American, who is not in the singles draw this week, will also play in Cincinnati before retiring at the U.S. Open.
“I felt like the old guy out there for sure,” Fish joked. “Certainly for a while (I was) the worst player on the court. The other team was playing fantastic…and played fantastic the whole time. It was fun. It was really fun to compete out there and to get out on these courts at this tournament one more time.”
Dimitrov, the No. 6 seed in singles, is still awaiting his opening opponent but several second-round matches are already set. One is Kevin Anderson, who made waves at Wimbledon, versus Alexander Zverev. The younger Zverev brother battled through a minor ankle injury to beat Yoshihito Nishioka 7-6(1), 6-3.
“I’m happy the way I’m playing,” Zverev assured. “It’s just my ankle; I always have a little problem with my left ankle changing surfaces. One move really hurt me, but just calling the physio to tape it helped me a lot.”
Among those joining Zverev in the last 32 are Donald Young, Ricardas Berankis, Victor Estrella Burgos, Hyeon Chung, and James Duckworth. Young ousted Tommy Haas 6-3, 6-4 after trailing 4-1 in the third set. Estrella Burgos, the shortest man in the draw at 5’8”, will face Atlanta champion John Isner (6’10”) thanks the diminutive Dominican’s 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over 19-year-old Chilean Nicolas Jarry. Berankis got past Yen-Hsun Lu in straights while Duckworth held off qualifier Ryan Harrison in a second-set tiebreaker.
Young did well to make a quick turnaround after Atlanta, where made a surprising run to the doubles semifinals with college player Chris Eubanks (Georgia Tech) before losing to Bob and Mike Bryan this past Saturday. The American’s second-set comeback against Haas featured a show-stopping running overhead reminiscent of a brilliant shot he had come up with against the Bryan brothers two days earlier.
As for Haas, it’s back to the drawing board. He is entered in Cincinnati but waffling and has a wild card into Winston-Salem. The veteran German is also considering some Challengers in the near future to get more matches under his belt.
“It’s an up-and-down battle,” Haas said of his latest comeback. “You have some good times and some bad times; just have to keep trying to improve. It’s a lot of things; me not having played a lot of matches in a long time. This was my first match on a hard court since Indian Wells in 2014.”
Topics: Atp World Tour, Citi Open, Donald Young, GRIGOR DIMITROV, Mardy Fish, Sports, Tennis, Washington DC
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