He was the No. 1 American player, beat Federer and Nadal, but retired due to anxiety issues

Tennis is often described as one of the most difficult sports, especially when it comes to its mental aspect. One of the players that has helped desestigmatize mental health issues is Mardy Fish, former World No. 7 and Davis Cup captain, who beat top players such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray throughout his career. His story is not only one of rising to the top amid one of the most brutal eras in men’s tennis history, dominated by the Big 3 and other formidable players, but also of vulnerability.

Born on December 9, 1981, Fish emerged as a hardcourt specialist, joining a formidable generation of American tennis players in the early 2000s, led by his friend Andy Roddick. The two of them not only trained together at Saddlebrook Academy, where tennis greats such as Pete Sampras, Jim Courier, Martina Hingis and others trained.

His relationship with Roddick was key for his career, as he even lived with his family in 1999 before becoming professional the next year. He even won his first professional title playing doubles with Roddick in 2002. However, their careers, in singles, took different turns.

As Roddick was then the No. 1 American in male tennis, as well as World No. 1 stint, winning the US Open in 2003 and fighting with Roger Federer in the biggest tournaments, Fish’s rise was slower. However, he had important achievements, such as winning the Olympic silver medal in 2004, as well as winning his first ATP Title in Stockholm.

Andy Roddick beat Mardy Fish at the 2003 Cincinnati Final to become World No. 1 (Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

In 2005, Fish underwent two surgeries after he injured his left wrist. After dropping to the No. 227, he went on to enter the Top 24 in 2008 again. He also appeared in finals of the Masters series (Cincinnati in 2003, Indian Wells in 2008). But his defining year was 2009, when he said he had an “eye-opening experience.”

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His rise to the Top 10

In a column for The Players Tribune, Fish wrote about 2009: “I was 27. Up to then, I’d had a nice career. It was a career that, in many ways, I could be proud of: I’d won the silver medal at the 2004 Olympics, had some results at a couple of Grand Slams, seen the world, made a good living. But it was nothing sustained (…) And I think I just sort of realized, in a way I previously hadn’t … that “nice,” as a tennis career, wasn’t good enough for me. That I wasn’t finished.”

As Fish explains, he changed his diet, his lifestyle and his “whole outlook.” In 2010, he started getting results. He beat Murray in Miami, won two more titles (Newport and Atlanta), reached the Cincinnati final and lost to Federer in the third set. He finally was able to beat Roddick, and in 2011, he became the No. 1 American.

Mardy Fish become one of the Top 10 players in 2011 (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Then, he entered the Top 10, reaching a career high of No. 7 in August of that year and, finally, he played the ATP Tour Finals. With all those accomplishments, 2012 was poised to be his biggest year ever. However, that’s when the anxiety kicked in.

His battle against anxiety and heart problems

While Fish was doing better than ever on tour, he admits that reaching the Top 10 made him feel a new kind of pressure. “I was, objectively, doing great. And looking back, I wish I had been able to tell myself that. But doing great wasn’t something that my frame of mind back then had time to process. All I could focus on was doing better. It was a double-edged sword,” he wrote to The Players Tribune in 2015.

That same year, he started suffering from heart arrhythmias which made him withdraw from the French Open in 2012, and other tournaments. He then had a “corrective procedure called an ablation, after which I was ostensibly ‘fine,’” he wrote. However, after he returned to tour in Wimbledon, he started experiencing more and more anxiety attacks. Until he reached his breaking point at the 2012 US Open.

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The 2012 US Open withdrawal and retirement

At the moment, Roddick was the last American man to have reached a Grand Slam final and he is still the last man to win a major. Fish’s pressure as the top American seeded for the last major of the year was considerable. He managed to reach the fourth round, where he was set to face Federer. However, he suffered a panic attack just hours after the match. In the Netflix’s documentary, Untold: Reaching Point, Mardy narrates:

“I’m a couple hours away from the biggest match of my career. The biggest match of my life. I was just curled up in a ball, trying desperately to figure out a way to just stop having these thoughts. And I’m about to play the greatest player of all time [Federer] to get into the quarterfinals of the US Open.

“This match, I had physically and mentally and emotionally trained for my entire life. And now, in the car ride to Arthur Ashe Stadium, my mind is million places. All of the sudden, just boom. The thoughts just kept floating in, more and more, and more. Just nonstop thoughts. My heart is just racing. Just deep breaths.”

Mardy Fish during a break at the BB&T Atlanta Open in 2013 (Daniel Shirey/Getty Images)

He ended up withdrawing from the match. Next year, he didn’t play the US Open and in 2014, he decided to not play at all. In 2015, he made a small return to the court. Ahead of the US Open, he announced he was going to retire from tennis. He retired with six ATP singles titles.

Life after retirement: Mental health awareness and golf

After his retirement, Fish still contributed to tennis, being United States Davis Cup captain from 2019 to 2023. He also became one of the best celebrity golfers, winning some championships.