The 6-foot-2 Minnesotan acknowledged what others had already known: “I was just too heavy,” he told Wired.com. “Flat out too heavy.”

So he hired a nutritionist to overhaul his diet. Out were pizza and fries and late-night meals; in was an aggressive calorie-counting regimen that’s allowed Fish to lose 30 pounds in less than a year, dropping his weight from 205 to 175. That decrease has reinvented Fish’s body and reinvigorated his career by ridding him of nagging knee injuries, boosting his endurance, bolstering his confidence, and turning him into a more versatile, effective player.

Fish’s reemergence began this past spring, as his world ranking slipped to No. 108. By then he’d lost 15 pounds and his endurance had grown. “I saw Mardy in Miami in March and I was shocked by how thin and healthy he looked,” says Darren Cahill, formerly the world’s No. 22-ranked player and now a coach and ESPN commentator. “He was able to practice much harder and better.”

But it wasn’t just growing endurance that kept him out on the court longer. His injuries waned because he was putting less stress on his body. “I really got aggressive with my training once I knew I was able to put in the long hours,” Fish says, “and not get injured or have nicks and bruises and things like that that come up when you’re probably not in your best shape.”

To put that in perspective, “every time you take a step there’s three to five times your own body weight on your knee,” says Dr. David Geier, the Medical University of South Carolina’s director of sports medicine and the tournament doctor for the WTA’s Family Circle Cup in Charleston. “If you take a pound off, you take three to five pounds of stress off your knee, and if you multiply that by the 30 pounds he lost, you’re going to see a huge difference.”

Additionally, Fish’s increased fitness reduces injuries because warding off fatigue helps preserve proper biomechanics. “When you’re tired in any given match you’re more susceptible to injury,” Geier says.

With his healthier body, Fish has been on a roll this summer, winning events in Newport, Rhode Island, and Atlanta, as well as narrowly losing to Roger Federer in the finals of the ATP World Tour stop in Cincinnati. Like never before, he’s been able to maintain a high level of tennis over a full season. “I’ve had big results before, here and there,” Fish says, “but then nothing for five months because I was injured or not feeling well.”

His world ranking has risen to No. 21, and in this year’s US Open he’s seeded 19th, his highest ever for the tournament. But early on at Flushing Meadows, Fish has been quickly tested. His first-round matchup took place under an oppressive New York sun that has pushed court temperatures upward of 110 degrees. After falling behind two sets to one and on the brink of being knocked, Fish flashed his newfound energy, bouncing along the baseline like a boxer in the moments before a title fight. While his opponent, Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic, languished in the heat, Fish endured, winning the last two sets convincingly to advance.

Fish realizes that was a match he may not have won before, which makes every hard-fought victory even sweeter. “I could see he was struggling to move,” Fish says of Hajek. “It’s a good feeling to wear down another player and know that all the hard work you put in paid off right there.”

His improved endurance, health, and quickness has also sharpened his strategy on the court. “Now that he feels like he’s got more energy and he’s got a better fitness base, his shot selection improves,” Cahill says. “He’s now pretty content to play defense when he needs to, then when he gets the right ball he can turn that around to offense. Before he was always looking to play offense and if that didn’t work he didn’t have any other options to rely on because he didn’t have the fitness base to grind.”

Fish continues to effectively grind in the heat in New York. On Wednesday he led his doubles team to comeback victory and on Thursday crushed his opponent in straight sets. This weekend he’ll try to progress through the third round and if he wins, he’ll likely face world No. 3 Novak Djokovic next, which would be his toughest test of the tournament.

“We’re all looking with a bit of interest to see how far he can take this. From a game perspective there is no question that he’s had a top-10 game his whole career, but from a professional standpoint, maybe he’s made some wrong decisions,” Cahill says. “That 30 pounds represents a lot of softness he was carrying around for many years.”

With that softness gone and his career on an upswing, he remains devoted to the new eating habits that have got him here. Of course, temptation still abounds.

“I saw a Domino’s Pizza commercial the other day that looked good,” Fish says. “That looked really good.”

Photo: Jeremy Repanich

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Authors: Jeremy Repanich

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