Mardy Fish
defeated Marcel Granollers 7-6. 7-6, 6-4 at Wimbledon
2011
By LadyDragon
LONDON--(LadyDragon.com)21/06/11--Q. Do you feel any more pressure
representing and playing for U.S. men, you and Andy,
considering the dearth of individuals at the top?
MARDY FISH: Yeah,
sure. You know, I mean, I'm ranked the No. 1 American.
So, yeah, with it comes, you know, a little bit more
pressure. And I feel it for sure. But, you know, it's
where you want to be. So it's a good thing.
Q. Do you have any thoughts as to sort of why the drop
off behind you guys at this point? We've been asking this
question and talking about this for about a year now.
MARDY FISH: I mean, I think it's just because we're not
you know, we're not competing for slams on a slam by slam
basis. I think that's one of the main reasons why we get
the questions. I mean, we have as many guys in the top 10
right now than any other country. You know, Spain has
two, we have two, and no one else has two. So, you know,
I think it's just for lack of the big events. I mean,
we've all done well at Indian Wells and Miami and things
like that, which are big events for us. But, you know,
this is obviously another step above those.
Q. You've been
coming here for a number of years now. Your game should
fit into the grass. You've had some good grass court
results. Can you talk about the evolution of your game on
grass and what your expectations are this year?
MARDY FISH: Yeah, I
feel most comfortable with my style of play on this
surface, you know, and it takes some getting used to. I
certainly wasn't as clean as I hope to be in the next
round or rounds, as I keep going hopefully.
But, yeah, I mean,
this is my best surface. I won more grass court matches
than anyone else did last year. I played three events. At
Wimbledon I didn't do well. I made the final of Queen's
and I won Newport.
So I obviously feel pretty comfortable on this surface.
This is certainly the tournament that, you know, I look
at sort of my résumé of making, you know, quarterfinals
in the other Grand Slams, Australia and the US Open, and
this is the one that always jumps out at me to want to do
well at.
Q. What makes grass your best surface? Why does your
game fit it well?
MARDY FISH: Well, I feel comfortable coming to the net. I
feel comfortable coming forward. They're doing a really
good job of making it tough to do that, as well. You
know, the balls are extremely heavy. When the sun's not
out, it's very hard to really get the ball through the
court, you know, minus the serve. You feel like it is
still grass, obviously, so the serve still takes, the
slice still takes, still moves pretty good. But it's as
the balls are as heavy as any ball out there. I feel a
lot more comfortable serving, if you take away the grass,
a lot more comfortable serving at the French Open with
those balls.
Q. Can you explain what 'heavy' means to you?
MARDY FISH: Yeah, balls get real big real quick. You
know, you can't really feel your shots as good as you can
as, you know, like the US Open, with those balls there.
And they just get tough to hit the ball through the
court. It's tough to hit winners from the baseline. Like
I said, the serve still moves and still takes and you can
serve well and hold serve because it's grass. It's still
grass. But, uhm, you know, the grass is so good and the
bounces are so pure that, you know, the balls, they're
really, really heavy.
Q. Is that frustrating for a guy who likes grass?
MARDY FISH: Yeah, sure, it's frustrating. I serve and
volleyed on I think almost every first serve today. But I
served well and had a lot of free points on my serve, so
I didn't necessarily get into a ton of rallies, have to
get into a ton of rallies on my serve games. It's tough
to hit the ball through the court with the forehand. You
know, you got to try to generate a lot of pace, and it's
hard.
Q. Do you understand why there seems to be this desire
by officialdom to homogenize all the surfaces?
MARDY FISH: Not necessarily here. It's such a unique
tournament, you know. It's such a unique surface. There's
not a ton of tournaments you can play on grass. We can
kind of get around the clay, play a couple clay court
events. If you want to, you could play half a year on
clay. You can't do that here. So obviously it's such a
unique surface and unique event, so...
Q. I guess you consider, of the slams where you should
be doing well, you consider this the one where you've
underachieved the most?
MARDY FISH: Without a doubt, yes.
Q. Why is that? Is it a conditioning thing?
MARDY FISH: No, it's not a conditioning thing here.
Conditioning doesn't play a huge part. Mentally I haven't
nearly been as strong. I've had some bad luck.
I remember in the third round in, I think it was 2006,
might have been 2007, I had to pull out of a match in the
third round against a qualifier, because I was as sick as
I've ever been in my life. I had to play Nadal in the
first round one year. I had to play Gasquet in the first
round one year when he had made the semis here year
before. Obviously really good players. I've had a little
bit of bad luck, and I'm ready.
Q. Istomin, your next opponent?
MARDY FISH: Yeah. I never played him. Sam has played him.
Obviously sharing a coach with Sam, Nainks has seen him
play I think four times in the last year, has played Sam,
so we'll get a good plan.
Q. What was your reaction when you heard who Isner
will be playing here? And what are your thoughts about
last year and this year?
MARDY FISH: Pretty shocking, obviously. And let's hope
that it doesn't happen again for their sake, because you
want them to do well. I want John to do well. First and
foremost, he's a tough opponent. He's a really good grass
courter. Let's hope it's not a perfect storm again.
Q. What do you remember most about last year's match
between them?
MARDY FISH: Just sort of it being surreal. It just kind
of you just couldn't really believe what was unfolding.
You knew going through, you know, when it was kind of in
the 30s and 40s that it was never going to happen again;
you were never going to see that again.
Yeah, so just pretty surreal. You know, you'd almost
capture the moment, and I think it's a cool plaque that
they have out there on Court 18.
Is the schedule out? Do they know when they're playing or
where they're playing? Haven't seen it.
Q. You're not a short guy, but when you walk around
the locker room these days, do you feel like the height
of the players...
MARDY FISH: There's a lot of tall guys, a lot of big
guys. You know, serving is a big part of today, because
if you can get some free points, you know, the way
they've slowed the surfaces down, it's big.
Q. Do you have to be like 6'4" to get those free
points these days?
MARDY FISH: It certainly helps. You know, I mean, there's
not a lot of guys in the top 10 that aren't at least six
feet tall maybe besides Ferrer. Is he 6 feet tall? I
mean, he's not 5'3", you know. I mean, he's the only
guy that jumps out at you that doesn't require a ton of
free points.
Q. Has Andy given you any c**p about out ranking him
or anything?
MARDY FISH: C**p? No. I mean, he wants it back. I'm going
to try to hold him off as long as I can (smiling).
Q. How strong would you say the top four seeds are
here right now, given the surface, and how each one of
those guys are playing?
MARDY FISH: Very strong. As far back as I can remember,
it's as top heavy as you've ever seen. I mean, those guys
have all the points. You know, if you look back maybe
five or ten years, I think I have like around 2400 ATP
points, and I don't think that would put me in the top
10. So those guys are doing well on every surface. It's
not a fluke, you know, that you see the top four seeds
almost every event in the semifinals, it doesn't matter
where it is. Murray, any one of those guys could win the
tournament. I wouldn't be surprised if any one of those
guys did.
Q. How intimidating is that to everybody who is in the
next group?
MARDY FISH: Well, I mean, you got to go about your
business. You got to hopefully not face 'em early. And,
you know, once you get there, I mean, you know, certain
guys feel like they can beat 'em. You know, personally I
feel like I can, especially on this surface. Murray's
obviously a really tough out here just because this is
one of his best surfaces and it's home. Roger's Roger and
Rafa's Rafa. Djokovic is playing as well as you've ever
seen anyone, as I've ever seen anyone play across the
net, for sure.
Q. You talked about the serve. If you look at the top
four guys, Roger can serve, Murray can hit the big one.
Isn't it more of a return in baseline games outside of
mental that is their strengths all around?
MARDY FISH: Their strengths, yeah. Djokovic and Murray
return as well as anyone just from a serving point of
view. You know, when they're across the net from me, I
mean, they're the scariest ones to me. I haven't played
Nadal in a little while, so, you know, I can't
necessarily speak from experience with that. I haven't
played him since, you know, maybe '08, quarters of the
Open. Those guys I played recently, they're the ones that
strike the most fear returning wise.
Q. You spoke earlier about the dearth of players or
the perceived dearth of top American men players to
follow you guys. When the Williams sisters are not
around, as they weren't the last year or so for the most
part on the women's side, how different do you perceive
the women's tour without the Williams sisters?
MARDY FISH: I mean, it's always wide open, it seems like.
You know, it's great to have them back because, you know,
just missing them at the French Open, besides Sam, I was
the only seeded player. We missed Andy obviously there,
too. You know, they're always missed. I mean, they're
such big personalities, you know, you can tell when
they're there and you can tell when they're not there.
You know, so with the exception of Bethanie, I mean, I
feel like we're kind of struggling on that side, you
know, minus them. And when they're not there, you can
really feel it.
Q. Did you see Venus' outfit today?
MARDY FISH: I didn't. I didn't see it. I was playing.
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