Is Mardy Fish the new Pancho Gonzales?

Written by: Tennischiro on 26th August 2011

Is Mardy Fish the new Pancho Gonzales?

epa02310206 Mardy Fish of the US hits a backhand return to Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic during their first round match at the 2010 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing, Meadows, New York, USA, 31 August 2010. The US Open Championship runs through 12 September when the men's final is scheduled to be played. EPA/JASON SZENES |

I got to finish watching the Montreal final on TennisTV.com this evening when I got back from the late afternoon lessons I had. A 10sballs.com writer, almost had it right when he said Mardy was a throwback to an earlier time and a style we had not seen for a long time. Truthfully, we have probably never seen that style.

I first saw Fish play at Indian Wells in 2001 when he took full advantage of his wild card entry to take out the 15th seed, Mark Philipousis. He was just a splinter and looked to be even less than his 19 years. But he completely disarmed Scud in my opinion; rendered the big man virtually impotent. He did it with clean footwork, easy power and the stealth of a ninja, taking the ball early and delivering the deadly blow before his victim even knew he had been attacked. His stokes were as effortless as they were flawless. At the time, he was being coached by Brad Stine who had risen to world class status as the traveling coach with Jim Courier when he made his rise to the top. I saw Brad and congratulated him on having a great new charge and counseled him to “hold on to him”. But it wasn’t to be. It took Mardy two and a half years to break into the top 20 and he stayed right around a ranking of 20 for most of 2004. Just 22 years old, it was the time for him to make his move to the big time. But that was going to take some really hard work.

Mardy took one particularly crushing defeat in 2004, losing in the finals of the Athens Olympics to Nicolas Massu after gaining a 2 sets to 1 lead. He followed that loss with a second round US Open loss to the #149 player in the world, Michal Tabara(??) and didn’t get past the round of 16 the rest of the year. The seemingly limitless potential was very nearly realized and then in 2005 he had two wrist surgeries and by February 2006 was down to 341 on the ATP computer. He made a nice comeback and got into the top 50 by the end of 2006 earning Comeback Player of the Year honors. He was certainly dangerous, but he really did little more than flirt with the very top levels of the game. At the same time, he was consistently America’s second or third best player after Roddick and Blake and a regular member of the Davis Cup team.

He married Stacy Gardner almost three years ago and he seemed to experience a new enthusiasm for his career. Then he had another surgery, this time for his left knee in the fall of 2009. And his ranking suffered as he fell out of the top 100 again. But he came back with a new attitude and the strong commitment to fitness and diet that had seemingly been lacking in his early career. He lost something like 30 pounds and started to cover the court the way he had not since his teen years, if even then. Fitness became his ally and advantage instead of a weakness for his opponents to exploit.

After his round of 16 showing in the US Open last year, he reentered the top 20 and has gradually improved his ranking ever since, reaching his new best ever #7 today. There is obviously a lot more to Mardy’s story, but it is certainly an inspiring story of what one can accomplish if he fully commits to do everything he can to maximize his potential. You think those models in the Carl’s Jr. commercials have to sacrifice for their bodies?! Mardy was holding his own in the top 30 in the world on the ATP Tour and so he could do better, or really his best, he has lost 30 pounds! He had to give up a lot of his favorites for that. I hope he feels today that it’s been worth it. I’m sure he does.

But let’s get back to Mardy’s game. I said we have never seen that style before. You have to look at what he does so well. He does not serve-and-volley as well as Edberg, Cash, Rafter or McEnroe, but he can do it better than almost anyone in today’s game (edge to yesterday’s doubles winner, Michael Lodra). He doesn’t serve as big as Roddick or the other monster server’s of today’s game, but he can regularly get the serve into the 130’s if he needs to and he definitely serves-and-volleys better than anyone who serves nearly as big as he does. His groundstrokes, on their own, are no match for the players ranked ahead and even immediately behind him in the current rankings, but he does hit them bigger when he needs to than any of the other serve-and-volleyers I mentioned earlier. He is no match for a speedster like David Ferrer, but his defensive skills are excellent and since he lost the 30 pounds, he is covering court like never before in his career and he has the stamina to do something late in a point when he finally gets the chance to go on the offense. And that is where he looks better than anyone else except maybe Federer or Murray in today’s game. It is in that moment where he has fended off the typically brutal attack that characterizes today’s groundstroke exchanges and he gets a little crack of an opportunity,… he can take that opportunity and transition into an overwhelmingly commanding position in the court, creating pressure on his opponents that they are simple not used to seeing. Federer takes that opening to hit a killer forehand; what Mardy is able to do is flow into the court putting himself in position to finish from an area where most of the other players simply do not have the skills to execute that strategy. It is really refreshing to see someone use this strategy. Many of us have feared such artistry was dead. The pure serve-and-volley player is probably out of the question, but the player who uses the serve-and-volley strategy a significant part of the time and mixes it with the approach-and-volley to surprise his opponents and force them to take on additional risk and make more errors on the baseline defending that possible scenario…that strategy is still very viable.

Mardy can not stand toe-to-toe with Djokovic and trade groundstrokes on the baseline. He knows that. But what he still has not come to complete terms with is that he can stay in the rally with Novak a little longer than before because of his new fitness, quickness and endurance until he has a chance to play his “joker”, his transition game. There were parts of the match where he did that beautifully today, but too often, he pressed and went for a little too much out of respect for Djokovic. Mardy is really only just learning to play with this new game, this new “toy”, that he now has in his arsenal. And it is interesting to see how much the opposition’s game crumbles when faced with it correctly executed. Even Djokovic struggled at times because he wanted to bring the point to a conclusion before Mardy got his chance to play his “joker”. For years, some of us have been claiming that there was room for a lot more “front court play” in the pro game, but it requires a skill that can’t be learned after about 16 years of age. It can be honed, but you can’t learn the flow that Mardy Fish has by trying to become an effective transition player after the age of 16. When Mardy released his attack perfectly a few times today, it was something beautiful. No one was more surprised than Djokovic, because no one does that to him.

But this is only one side of the coin. The other side is that Mardy has the ability to hold serve. When I saw him beat Flipper in 2001 at Indian Wells, he made 61% of his first serves and won 76% of those points. Pretty good numbers, but I thought he should have improved on them in the ten years since. Indeed. Mardy is averaging 59% first serves and winning 77% of those points on the ATP Tour this year. You have to figure those winning percentages may be a little less against Djokovic, but Mardy won 72% on his first serve points against Novak in the Montreal final. However, he made just 52% of his first serves. He’s 6’2″ tall. He should be able to make 2/3 first serves. Would that have won him one of those 40-0 service games that got away?

Where did Crabtree get the sense he’s seen someone move like Mardy Fish before? You have to go right to Pancho Gonzales. Mardy needs a little of Gonzales’s steely mental attitude and also a little of Richard’s much higher first serve percentage. Mardy may serve a little bigger with today’s equipment and he certainly hits a bigger forehand, but no one served better in the clutch than Richard Gonzales. Fish still could improve that aspect of his game and then he would start to hold more service games. Then the subtle pressure that his transition “joker” presents for his opponents becomes a Sword of Damacles hanging over their heads. Most of the commentators were talking about how Nole found a way to win even thought he wasn’t playing his best and it certainly appeared that he wasn’t; however, I didn’t hear anyone say that it was the way Mardy was playing the ball early that was messing with Nole’s rhythm and causing him to play poorly. I’m just saying…