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  • Friends or foes - Fish takes on Blake

    8/30/08 6:30 AM | Ricky Dimon
    - Fellow Americans and good friends Mardy Fish and James Blake will square off under the lights in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday night. A spot in the fourth round of the U.S. Open is on the line.

    James Blake said in an interview on Friday that the loser of his third-round match in Flushing Meadows might be taking the winner out to dinner later that night. He might not have been kidding.

    Blake will meet countryman Mardy Fish on Saturday night. It will be the fourth head-to-head encounter between the friendly rivals, and the previous three all came on hard courts. After splitting the first two a while back, Blake broke the tie in last year's New Haven title match with a 7-5, 6-4 victory.

    A title as not at stake this time around. This time the stakes are arguably even greater. After all, Mardy Fish has never even been this far in eight previous visits to the U.S. Open. Now he's one win away from playing for a place in the quarterfinals. He probably could not have envisioned such an opportunity just a short time ago. Fish stunningly reached the final of the Masters Series Indian Wells in March, but he then endured a dismal summer slump. The No. 35 player in the world lost in the first round at Wimbledon, Newport, Toronto, Cincinnati, and Washington. Last week in New Haven, however, Fish made it all the way to the title match, where he lost to up-and-coming 6'6'' Croat Marin Cilic. Fish kicked off his U.S. Open campaign with a four-set victory over Australian Robert Smeets and followed that up with a four-set win over No. 24 seed Paul-Henri Mathieu.

    Blake's road to the third round has been a bit more interesting. He survived an impressive performance by up-and-coming American Donald Young to prevail in five sets. The No. 9 seed then dropped the first set of his second-round match against Steve Darcis, but won set two before the Belgian retired with a lingering back problem. Blake, a two-time U.S. Open quarterfinalist, would probably classify his first two efforts as decent, and that's exactly what his whole summer has been. He reached the semifinals in Indianapolis (but lost to Dmitry Tursunov) and the quarterfinals in Toronto (but got blown out by Nicolas Kiefer), and then made it to the Olympic semifinals before falling to Fernando Gonzalez and Novak Djokovic.

    Fish fired 28 aces and zero double-faults in his win over Mathieu, and he will have to come close to duplicating that effort if he wants to upset Blake. Unless Fish's backhand is really on fire and his forehand is unusually steady, he cannot stay with Blake from the baseline. The crowd, while backing both, will be in Blake's favor, especially if the J-Block is out in force as expected on a Saturday night in New York. Blake in four competitive sets is the pick.

    Mardy Fish looking forward to playing good friend James Blake.


    James Blake keen to face his friend Mardy Fish in 3rd round.

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