Mardy Fish’s comeback to tennis was one point away–twice–from becoming a BNP Paribas Open Cinderella story on Thursday afternoon. No matter that fellow American Ryan Harrison pushed the clock hands to midnight. It was still a big victory for Fish.
Fish’s first singles match since the 2013 Winston-Salem Open resulted in a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(3) loss after Harrison saved two match points at 4-5 in the third set. The 33-year-old was undone by nine double-faults and conversions on just three of 15 break-point chances, but he impressively battled from wire to wire throughout two hours and 36 minutes of play.
“It felt great to be out there,” said Fish, who also played doubles at last month’s Dallas Challenger and will do so in Indian Wells with Grigor Dimitrov. “Those are the situations you work hard to put yourself into. I worked really hard to get back in shape so I don’t have any issues before and after matches.”
The 2008 Indian Wells runner-up had plenty of issues while facing an in-form Harrison. But perhaps his off-the-court struggles with an anxiety disorder have helped him deal with on-court adversity, as well. Fish came back from a set down against Harrison to force a third then recovered from 4-2 down in final set to put himself within one point triumph with his opponent serving at 4-5, 15-40.
Harrison, too, delivered the goods when his back was against the wall. The recent Acapulco runner-up executed a perfect serve-and-volley on the first match point and jammed Fish with a well-placed second serve on the next one.
Despite having come so close, Fish–as one might expect–was just happy to be out on the court…especially in Indian Wells.
“It’s probably the only one (tournament) I would have been able to start with, since it’s so close to home,” he explained. “This is such a great event. I have great memories from 2008 here, on [stadium] court, so it felt fantastic to be out there.
Now the question is will he continue to play tournaments much further away from home?
“I’ll learn from this,” Fish added. “I didn’t have many expectations of how many tournaments I could play.”
His press-conference comments following the match were encouraging. He said that he has been playing five or six days a week for the last 20 weeks, which indicates he is preparing for a comeback of a grander scale than simply one tournament in the California desert. Fish plans to play Miami later this month and then use up is allotment of protected-ranking entries through the U.S. Open this summer.
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