WESTERN AND SOUTHERN FINANCIAL GROUP MASTERS

August 2, 2004

Mardy Fish

THE MODERATOR: Let's open it up for questions for Mardy, please.

MARDY FISH: It started hurting probably late in the second set, probably like 4-All, 5-All, something like that. It hurt a lot when I was like stretching out. You know, I've been rehabbing it for a good nine, ten days now and, you know, it's gotten significantly better every single day. And, you know, I mean, I should be fine. I just -- my goal going out there was not to injure it more - I mean, to try to win, obviously, but not to injure it more. I was contemplating not even playing. I decided to give it a go. I could have won it there in the second set. Had I done that, I would have had two more days of rehab, which would have been huge.

MARDY FISH: I mean, not really. I mean, I think I knew exactly what I wanted to do and my goal going out there was to serve, serve well, at a high percentage, mix it up. I mean, I knew I couldn't hit my serve as hard as I could all the time like I normally do. Otherwise, it would have started hurting after the first set. I mean, I tried to hit a lot of kick serves and come in and try to give him no rhythm at all, and, you know, try to end the points quickly. I mean, I basically haven't -- I've been only doing rehab for the entire time -- I hit yesterday. That was the first time I hit since Thursday that I injured it. It's the first time that -- I wasn't supposed to do anything - riding the bike, running, anything like that. I was just physically, you know, I was feeling a little tired just at the end. I tried to shorten every point so I could last as long as I could.

MARDY FISH: Pretty much, yeah. Ten days.

MARDY FISH: I mean, I've had two injuries in my entire career, in three years, three and a half years, something like that. I think I've been pretty lucky. I would take that any day. I think every guy out here would take two injuries in three and a half years. Mine just happened to be back-to-back. It's frustrating, you know. I wanted to do well here. I wanted to do well last week. I've missed four straight matches, straight tournaments, and this one, which I pulled out, is my fifth one. I don't really have too many points to defend next year (smiling).

MARDY FISH: It's a sprained, like, ligament. Sprained muscle.

MARDY FISH: In my back, like mid back on the right side.

MARDY FISH: Serving.

MARDY FISH: Yeah, like I hit -- it was in Indianapolis. I was practicing. I hit a serve, and I kind of walked back and I was like kind of feeling something weird. I was like, "What is that?" You know, I walked back. Hit a second serve. I just doubled over when I hit the second serve, and it started spasming really bad.

MARDY FISH: Yeah, yeah. But today it was like this stretching a lot was hurting it. But, yeah, mostly it's the serve.

MARDY FISH: Well, I mean, at the beginning -- I mean, once I went down a break, it was gonna be tough just because I was, I mean -- it was hurting bad and I didn't want to show it at all. I don't know if I did, but I definitely didn't want to show it. And, you know, it just started spasming up. It's really tough to even breathe. It was tough to breathe like -- breathe in deep. It would hurt really bad. So it was, I mean, it was going to be tough, I knew that. I knew if I could stay one break back, it's only one game that I could play really well on the return games and keep my serve. That wasn't really the issue. The issue was I didn't really want to hurt it anymore. This tournament I can play next year, and I can't play the Olympics next year. I really want to play that, and I really want to play singles and doubles there as well.

MARDY FISH: Yeah. That doesn't start for another two weeks from today, right? So, I mean, I'll be fine. It's gotten so much better in the past ten days. I couldn't really bend down and tie my shoes at first. Just to make it here and to be able to play two strong sets against a guy like Agassi without it hurting really, really bad, that was definitely progress. But I didn't want to hurt it worse.

MARDY FISH: I mean, he hit that forehand up the line, the backhand up the line. I mean, he comes up with good shots; that's what good players do. I've been on the losing end of a few tiebreakers this year - in a row. I lost the last two matches that I played 7-6, 7-6 before this one. So I've had some bad luck in some of them and, you know, not really played so well in others. But, I mean, he hit good shots and he made me come up with the goods. And I lost one point on my serve there up until the double-fault at 6-3. I mean, I don't know. I try to watch Andy play tiebreakers. He usually wins every tiebreaker he plays, which is pretty tough to do, so...