Fish unsure about tour return
Originally published on: 25/04/12 00:00
Mardy Fish’s season hasn’t exactly gone swimmingly so far, and now the world No.9 is unsure exactly when he will play again on the ATP Tour. The American woke up feeling ill several weeks ago and after losing to Juan Monaco in the quarter-finals of the Sony Ericsson Open, he promptly saw two doctors in two days.
He was diagnosed with fatigue, but the American is still trying to pin down exactly why he felt the way he did. “I’m doing okay. We’re doing lots of tests to try to figure out what’s going on and what went wrong,” Fish told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “It’s sort of unclear as to how or why it happened yet, but we’re trying to figure it out. It’s not something I’m super comfortable talking about. It certainly was a scare.”
Ordered to take time off, Fish pulled out of the U.S. Davis Cup team’s quarter-final with France at the Monte-Carlo Country Club. “That was really devastating and disappointing not to be able to go there,” said Fish. “If you know me, you know that it had to be something pretty significant.”
Fish did return briefly, but lost his sixth match (of 13) this season in the first round in Houston against world No.136 Michael Russell.
The 30-year-old Los Angeles resident would like to feature in Madrid and Rome in early May, but admits he does not yet know if he’ll even make it back in time for Roland Garros.
''I'm not 100 percent sure whether I'll be back for that, but that's the goal,” said Fish, who revealed this week that he will skip the London Olympics in favour of Washington’s City Open tournament.
“I definitely thought about going – the prospect of playing the Olympics at Wimbledon on a grass court, a surface that suits me very well. I have some great memories from the Olympics. I also have some tough memories from it as well, where I was so close to winning a gold medal.”
Fish won silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics but missed out on gold after falling to Chile’s Nicolas Massu 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 4-6 in the deciding match.
“That loss hurt as much or more than any loss I’ve ever had in my career. So I stayed away in 2008 for Beijing and I’m going to stay away this time.”
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