Mardy Fish hasn’t played much tennis the past couple of years and it might become even more difficult to get back on the men’s tour now. Fish became a father Saturday in Los Angeles, where his wife, Stacey, gave birth to their son, Beckett Gardner Fish, who arrived at 3:45 p.m. (PST) weighing 9 pounds, 6 ounces.
“So blessed to welcome our first child into this world,” Fish announced via Twitter, adding, “Baby and mommy happy and healthy!”
Fish, who grew up in Vero Beach and whose father, Tom, is the director of tennis at Windsor, could not be reached for comment Sunday. However, in a text message sent last week, the former top-10 player said he was “excited” about the impending birth of his son and that the status of his career was “on hold.”
Fish, who turned 32 in December, has missed most of the past two seasons on the ATP Tour as he recovers from the after-effects of a form of arrhythmia – a frightening problem that caused his heart beat to simultaneously race and pound, so much so that he was rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night after a March 2012 match at the SONY Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne.
During the attacks, which occurred mostly at night and made it difficult for him to sleep, he felt as if his heart was “going to burst out of my chest,” he said.
In May 2012 in Los Angeles, Fish underwent a procedure called a cardiac catheter ablation to correct the faulty electrical connections in his heart. And not long afterwards, he was physically ready to return to the court.
Mentally and emotionally, though, he was so scarred by the episodes that, for months, he was afraid to leave the house, sleep alone and play tennis. He wouldn’t discuss details of what was wrong, even with friends. He gave serious thought to retiring.
Fish played seven more tournaments in 2012, getting to the Round of 16 at Wimbledon, the semifinals in Washington, the quarterfinals in Toronto and Cincinnati, and the Round of 16 at the U.S. Open. However, he played in only five ATP Tour-level tournaments in 2013, compiling a 4-5 record.
He hasn’t played a match that matters since losing a second-round match to Jarkko Nieminen in August in Winston-Salem, N.C. He hasn’t played in a Grand Slam event since the 2012 U.S. Open, where he withdrew from a Labor Day showdown against Roger Federer – just hours before their scheduled match – citing health reasons.
Fish has won six ATP Tour singles titles, reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, U.S. Open and Wimbledon championships, and was the silver medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics. But his absence from the court has caused his world ranking to plummet from a career-high No. 7 in August 2011 to No. 369 this week.
He could return to the ATP Tour using a protected ranking of No. 25, which would allow him to enter as many as nine high-level tournaments this year. But his protected ranking expires on March 31.
Last fall, Fish played in two professional tournaments on the All-American Gateway Tour, a developmental circuit for golfers – primarily in their 20s and 30s – hoping to play their way onto the Web.com Tour and, ultimately, the PGA Tour.
He failed to make the cut at the Arizona events, the first in Tempe (Oct. 29-Nov. 1) and the other in Chandler (Nov. 11-13), despite shooting 78-75 in both of them.