Racquet Reaction - Davis Cup: Fish d. Wawrinka

Davis Cup: Fish d. Wawrinka	02/10/2012 - 12:28 PM

“This is what Davis Cup is all about.” It’s the phrase you hear often, and you could have repeated it many times over today during Mardy Fish’s 6-2, 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 9-7 win over Stan Wawrinka in the first rubber between the U.S. and Switzerland.

What Davis Cup is all about, in this case as in so many others, is not necessarily brilliant or unfaltering individual performances. It’s about the messier and more human drama of courage and failure crossing from one side of the net to the other every few games. The shot we’ll remember is Fish’s perfectly controlled angle volley to end it, but the path he took to get there was hardly a smooth one. For five sets and four hours, both he and Wawrinka struggled, and were inspired by, the particular pressure of Davis Cup.

Amid all of the winners and errors, the erratic serving, terrific drop shots, poor return choices, brave last stands, and general tactical confusion, one moment stands out as decisive. At 1-1 in the fourth set, Wawrinka reached 15-40, double break point. He had begun the previous two sets by breaking Fish early and had won them both. By this point, Fish appeared lost, tentative, unsure of how aggressive to be on the unfamiliar, and extremely bumpy, red clay underneath him. His forehand lacked conviction, his normally reliable backhand was rolling timidly into the middle of the net, and he couldn’t buy a return on a big point. From 15-40, though, Fish found one shot that worked for him: his serve. While his first-serve percentage hovered in the 40s for most of the match, he used it to get out of this jam. Fish eventually saved three break points; more important, he was energized by the moment. Instead of starting the set in the hole, he had made something positive happen, and you could see it in his body language.

Soon you could see it in Fish’s game, in the newfound decisiveness in his forehand and the newfound snap on his backhand return. He ran out the set 6-1 and looked ready to run out the match when he went up 4-2 in the fifth and had a look at a second serve on break point. But that would have been far too easy for Davis Cup. Wawrinka hit his second serve deep and Fish shanked his return 10 feet wide. He did the same on the next point. A minute later, Wawrinka had held, gotten the crowd to its feet, and was up 0-40 on Fish’s serve.

From that moment until the final point, anxiety seemed to flow from one side to the other with every point. Fish, with help from a tremendous retrieval and lob winner at 0-40, eventually held for 5-3. In his next service game, he reached match point. Now it was Wawrinka’s turn to find some courage. After chipping his way meekly through much of the fifth set, he suddenly rifled a backhand up the line and followed it with a crosscourt forehand winner. He broke for 5-5 and the two traded four routine holds to make the score 7-7. Then things got hairy again.

Wawrinka made four unforced errors to be broken for 8-7. Fish served for the match for a second time; naturally, things quickly went south for him. Wawrinka opened with a backhand winner and Fish followed with a nervous drop shot into the net. Wawrinka hit a backhand return winner for 15-40, but from there it was Fish’s turn to hold steady. He saved both break points with service winners, hit an ace to set up his third match point, and finished with what may have been his finest point and shot of the match. He snuck in on a forehand approach and nerve-lessly guided his forehand volley short and into the open court for the match.

It wasn’t pretty, but both players came off the mat and turned it into one more 15-round Davis Cup epic. Not that Fish really wanted to be in another one. After his two losses in the U.S’s tie against Spain last summer, including a crushing five-setter to Feliciano Lopez, the American said he had briefly thought of hanging up his racquets for good. The U.S. team must be happy he didn’t; today Fish essentially kept them alive against the Swiss. A roller-coaster defeat last year, a roller-coaster redemption this year. That's what Davis Cup is all about.

—Steve Tignor

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Posted by John T Lang	02/10/2012 at 12:38 PM
Can this be viewed online?

Posted by John T Lang	02/10/2012 at 12:40 PM
Oh yeah, 1st! ha

Posted by Andre Wright	02/10/2012 at 01:05 PM
Why it took him five sets.

Posted by BetterAtSingles	02/10/2012 at 01:10 PM
Good piece, Steve. I like this one. You made the description of the match about as exciting as it can be written compared to watching it.

Posted by another girl

02/10/2012 at 01:17 PM

beauty and truth here:

What Davis Cup is all about, in this case as in so many others, is not necessarily brilliant or unfaltering individual performances. It’s about the messier and more human drama of courage and failure crossing from one side of the net to the other every few games.

you are in very fine form...

Posted by noleisthebest	02/10/2012 at 01:28 PM
Really happy for Fishie.

Posted by noleisthebest

02/10/2012 at 01:31 PM

"It wasn’t pretty, but both players came off the mat and turned it into one more 15-round Davis Cup epic"

Why wasn't it pretty?
I thought they both played their hearts out and there were some really excellent rallies and shot-making.
Plus, tennis itself looked a bit more human after AO.
I'm glad Fed is having to "carry" Stan again :)

Posted by Michele

02/10/2012 at 01:55 PM

I'm continually blown away by the five set DC matches. Sorry for Swiss Stan but yay for Spain's JC!

And here I thought the AO final was brutal. This looks so much harder from a pressure perspective. Gulp.

I'm also fascinated by the on-court couch/player relationship unique to DC -- and how hard it must be for, say, Courier to know how to walk that delicate line in the heat of the moment.

Posted by k4

02/10/2012 at 02:35 PM

Congrats to Fish. He deserved to win much earlier, but obviously struggled a lot with himself, more than with Wawrinka on court. He started quite well, then he lost his momentum, endless stroke of UE and than, when it was more than he was out in fourth set and the match obviously, he found himself hitting with precision in a way he started the match.

I'm watching the other match where Isner is leading by 2:1 in sets and is looking that Federer is having a lot of trouble with Isner returns when he need to be focus and contemplate the good play all around. But Isner is fighter, isn't he? Just a trivia. I cannot see how tennis could be more popular than football or baseball when even the commentators on FOX tv is cheering for Federer. It's like not enough that you don't have to watch the match at all to easy conclude what might be the result: each point won by Federer is celebrated with huge ovations, than after Isner won the same, it sounds like the match is muted suddenly, no one is cheering. It's expectable by Swiss crowd to celebrate his own, but for Americans to cheer the Swiss when US team is playing, common?

Posted by The Insider

02/10/2012 at 02:45 PM

Great win for Mardy Fish.

Mardy would love to forget this - http://thetennistimes.com/caroline-wozniacki-aces-mardy-fish-at-hopman-cup-2012/

Posted by k4	02/10/2012 at 02:53 PM
So Isner did it. Huge congrats to him and US team!

Posted by pera kojot	02/10/2012 at 03:12 PM
Congrats to Isner

Posted by Fed Fan	02/10/2012 at 03:25 PM
Funny reading the comments from earlier about how this loss means Fed will have to "carry" Stan...ha ha, maybe it's the other way round. At least Stan put up a fight today.

Posted by Ryan

02/10/2012 at 03:33 PM

I knew that it was toss up between USA and Suisse since Stan is inconsistent and Fed needed to be sharp against Isner and Fed is hardly sharp these days. The dubs will be toss up as well.

USA! USA!

Posted by AP

02/10/2012 at 03:36 PM

Stan atleast tried to put up a fight today but I was really disappointed with the way Federer played in terms of mental toughness...Something is missing in him these days...the will to fight it out till the end is gone...

Look at Nole/Nadal who give it their all even if its the last point of the match..Federer on the other hand gives up so easily...No wonder they have won their matches against Isner who is the most unpredictable player on clay court and Federer lost it!

Federer- Low on Mental Toughness? http://bit.ly/w1rvpN

Posted by noleisthebest

02/10/2012 at 04:17 PM

Fed Fan,

my comment was meant to be ironic.

Posted by skip1515

02/10/2012 at 06:04 PM

For what it's worth, the Fish/Wawrinka match wasn't particularly pretty, as Steve says, but it was exciting. I was at the match, and there were plenty of times (late in the 5th, especially) when neither player felt confident enough to go after the win, preferring to wait and not lose. I say that with no prejudice, it's quite understandable, and frankly more common than not.

To a great degree it was a battle of who managed their shaky shanky forehands better. Aside from their fist serve percentages (which I haven't researched), neither of them served a lot of big, flat first serves. While the court is surprisingly quick for clay (with a number of bad bounces, as you noted, Steve), it's still evident that a big first serve isn't an absolute advantage.

Unless you're John Isner, in which case the first serve is a humongous advantage, but only if you have the mental strength to put it and a bunch of other balls in play in order to win a match, which he did. In spades.

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