Stricken Fish reaches end of the road at US Open
Print Edition
MARDY Fish faced down heart problems and crippling anxiety attacks but in the end it was a humble spot of cramping which brought his career to an end on Wednesday.
The 33-year-old American, who has played just a handful of tournaments in the last three years and seen his ranking slip to 581 as he battled his personal demons, had already said that this US Open, his 13th, would be his last event.
Despite serving for the match at 5-4 in the fourth set of his second-round clash against Spain’s Feliciano Lopez, he was finally undone by the same cramping which has claimed many players at this year’s hot and humid US Open.
“I wasn’t quitting. I was just cramping. I mean, both sides of both legs, if I moved anywhere close to three or four steps, two or three steps, it would go,” said Fish after the 3hr 11min Louis Armstrong Stadium encounter, which he lost 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 5-7, 3-6.
“You would have had to carry me off the court. I was definitely not stopping at that point.”
Fish once reached No. 7 in the world, won six career titles and made the quarterfinals three times at the majors, including the 2008 US Open.
But in 2012, his world imploded.
In May that year, he underwent a procedure to correct a heartbeat irregularity.
Then, at the US Open, where he was the 23rd seed, he was set to face Roger Federer in the fourth round but stunned the tournament by withdrawing for “health reasons”.
It was then that Fish realized he was dealing with a problem which affects millions of people around the world.
He suffered another anxiety attack sitting on the plane which was to carry him home to Los Angeles as it taxied on the runway.
Fish had to disembark and pay US$20,000 to hire a private jet to take him out of New York.
The Anxiety Disorders Association of America estimates that 3.3 million Americans over the age of 18 — around 1.5 per cent of the population — suffer from the disorder every year.
The condition decimated Fish’s career. This year’s US Open was his first since that 2012 pullout.
He played just five events in 2013, none at all in 2014 and this year featured in only three tournaments, all in the United States.
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