How Mardy came back from his own Break Point
ONCE ranked among the top ten men’s tennis players in the world, Mardy Fish takes us on a very intimate and personal journey in Netflix documentary Untold: Breaking Point which chronicles the mental health issues which all but ended the American’s flourishing career
A graduate of the Saddlebrook Tennis Academy in Florida in the mid-1990s Fish (below), along with fellow student Andy Roddick, was viewed as the future as US tennis looked for a new golden generation to replace the likes of John McEnroe, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras.
As well as fine tuning the skills required to make it in the unforgiving world of elite tennis, Saddlebrook was to drum into Fish the importance of mental toughness, but it also forged an inability to open up which was to affect the star later in his career.
Fish lived with Roddick and his family for a while but it was the latter who was to enjoy the greater success, winning the US Open in 2003 and becoming world No.1 later that year.
In 2009, determined to reach his goal of playing in the season-ending World Tour Finals, Fish embarked on a new training regime, which was to produce a remarkable transformation.
As Roddick recalls on seeing his old friend: ‘Here was Mardy with half the face he used to have winning matches.’
In two seasons Fish rose from No.49 to No.7 in the world, beat Roddick twice in a row having failed to down his rival in nine previous outings and sealing his much-coveted spot in the season’s finale in November 2011, weeks before his 30th birthday.
However, in 2012 the pressures of being America’s No.1 and a slump in form began to fuel anxieties he had previously kept in check. Things came to a head at the US Open, which also happened to be Roddick’s swansong, when his problems began to follow him onto the court, until then a haven he classed as his ‘safe place’. Unable to handle the prospect of facing Roger Federer in his fourth-round tie Fish withdrew from the tournament, tennis and much of the world around him.
After playing sporadically for two years and being diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder, with the help of a psychologist Fish bounced back and in 2019 was named US Davis Cup captain. On the future he says: ‘It’s a daily battle but I win every day.’