Twenty-third-seeded American Mardy Fish became the record-setting tenth player to fight back from two sets down and win in the 2012 U.S. Open when he beat Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko in five sets Thursday.
The 31-year-old American, who went though minor heart surgery in May to correct arrhythmia, came out playing far from his best tennis, against an opponent who can be fragile mentally but has excellent physical skills.
Davydenko took the first two sets as Fish hit a lot of errors and hit a lot of balls right back to his opponent, giving Davydenko easy points. Fish fought hard; the first two sets took almost two hours. He just didn’t win the fights.
The American turned everything around in the third set, winning in 28 minutes and hitting only four errors. Davydenko seemed to lose confidence after losing the set; he played occasional great points but made a lot of errors and hit a lot of balls to the middle of the court where Fish could jump on them.
After losing two sets 4–6, 7–6, Fish won the last three 6–2, 6–1, 6–2.
