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Fish Goes Down, Yet Continues His Rise

Jewish player remains top American

by
Marc Tracy
August 15, 2011
Mardy Fish during the semifinal match Saturday (which he won).(Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
Mardy Fish during the semifinal match Saturday (which he won).(Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

Mardy Fish, the Jewish tennis player who has been the top-ranked American for the past several months, lost the finals of the Rogers Cup, in Montreal, yesterday as the Serb Novak Djokovic continues his historically great season. Still, though, this was the third straight tournament finals that Fish, 29, has reached (he also got to Wimbledon’s semi-finals, where he was defeated by Rafael Nadal, who went on to hand Djokovic his only loss of the year).

Fish’s newfound fame occasioned a mini-profile over the weekend in the Times. Fish, who before this year had never made it beyond a Grand Slam quarterfinals and never been esteemed the best U.S. playern (an honor that has usually gone to his longtime friend Andy Roddick), used to be quite overweight by tennis standards—blame pizza, apparently—but grew a hardier work ethic, lost the pounds, and later this month will be in the spotlight as never before when he arrives in Queens for his country’s Open. We’ll be tuned in.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.