VERO BEACH — Still battling the crippling effects of a severe anxiety disorder brought on by a frightening heart ailment in 2012, Mardy Fish plans to retire from tennis at this summer’s U.S. Open in New York.
According to a knowledgeable source, speaking exclusively to Vero Beach 32963 on the condition of anonymity, Fish has decided to abandon his sputtering comeback and not play beyond the Open, after which a protected ranking that allowed him to enter a limited number of ATP World Tour events will expire.
Contacted at his Los Angeles home via text message, Fish, 33, said he would make an announcement about his tennis future “relatively shortly … probably around Wimbledon.”
Play at Wimbledon began Monday.
Fish’s father, Tom, longtime tennis director at the posh Windsor Club, said last week he would not comment publicly on his son’s announcement.
Fish, who grew up in Vero Beach and slugged his way into the top 10 of the world rankings, has played only one Tour-level match since August 2013.
However, he is scheduled to play singles and doubles – with childhood buddy Andy Roddick coming out of retirement to be his partner – in next month’s BB&T Atlanta Open.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Roddick said during a joint news conference last week. “We just wanted to play together one last time.”
During that same news conference, Fish said he hoped to add at least one more tournament during the summer hard-court season, possibly in Cincinnati, then play at the Open. But he has played only one competitive match since August 2013 and doesn’t know how he’ll react to playing again.
Fish was scheduled to play in both the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells and Miami Open at Key Biscayne in March, but after losing a tough three-setter to Ryan Harrison in his first-round match in California desert, he never made the trip to Florida.
So he hasn’t yet committed to any tournaments beyond Atlanta – and that includes the Open, which begins Aug. 31.
“Unfortunately, I can only look to Atlanta, just with how things have gone in the past few years, how things went in Indian Wells,” Fish said.
“I wanted to play Miami, but I’m still sort of fighting the battle of the anxiety disorder, trying to get a firm grip on how I feel after matches.
“It’s no secret I’d love to go back to the U.S. Open, where it all sort of came crashing down for me in 2012, and sort of conquer that place,” he added. “And by conquer I mean: Just get back out on the court there.
“I have a lot demons from that place.”
Fish, who turned pro in 2000 at age 18 and climbed to No. 7 in the world rankings in 2011, was enjoying a late-career surge and was playing the best tennis of his life when he was knocked off the court by a heart ailment that, despite being surgically corrected, triggered a debilitating anxiety disorder.
He played only 32 matches in 2012 and, though he reached the quarterfinals in Toronto and Cincinnati that summer, the anxiety attacks worsened – to the point where he withdrew from what was supposed to have been a nationally televised, Labor Day showdown against Roger Federer in the U.S. Open’s Round of 16.
Two summers ago, Fish attempted to launch a new career in professional golf, but he abandoned the effort late last year, when he realized it was too late in life for him to put himself in position to take a shot at the PGA Tour.
So after 18 months away from the game, he returned to tennis, using a protected ranking of No. 25, which was granted because he was knocked off the courts by injury or illness.
This summer, he’ll try to do so again, if only for a tournament or two.
“It all starts in Atlanta for me,” he said.
