| By Chris Oddo |
Photo Credit: Tony Chang/Chang Photography |
.aspx)
(March 29, 2012)—It was one of those days that Mardy Fish will probably want to forget. Juan Monaco, meanwhile, now that's another story.
Monaco's 6-1, 6-3 thrashing of the top-ranked American lands him in his second career Masters semifinal. The 28-year-old birthday boy will now await the winner of the Novak Djokovic - David Ferrer quarterfinal this evening.
"Every shot that I want to play, I did," said an elated Monaco afterwards. "It was [a] perfect match for me."
Fish, meanwhile, will have to stew on the lopsided loss until he next takes the court alongside his Davis Cup brethren when the Americans take on the French in early April.
It's probably unfair to Monaco, who played brilliantly today, but the focus during the telecast and on Twitter was on the decidedly abysmal play of Fish.
Here's a small sample of what we read on Twitter and heard on television during the match:
"When did dirtballer Monaco learn how to club America's best men on hard courts?"
-- Doug Robson, tennis writer
"Want to see Fish asleep with its eyes open? Turn to ESPN2 . (Mardy, down 6-1, needs a wake up)"
-- Jon Wertheim, Sports Illustrated
When is Mardy Fish scheduled to exit the locker room?"
-- Tom Perotta, tennis writer, during the second set!
Patrick McEnroe, who commentated the match on ESPN, also got in his digs, calling Fish's effort "embarrassing" and "horrendous."
But commentators were clear to point out that it wasn't necessarily for lack of effort -- Fish was just having a horrible day. And it just so happened that his horrible day coincided with a perfect day for his opponent.
"I think more than anything else, he shrunk the court extremely well with his movement, and that's why I think you saw a ton of errors from me," said Fish.
Fish managed to win only 46 percent of points on his serve against the energetic Argentine, yet even in spite of that he found himself on serve at 3-3 in the second set after converting on his only break point of the match.
But Monaco broke right back, sending a topspin lob over an attacking Fish that he could only graze with his racquet.
"He had an unbelievable lob on that last point that I wasn't sure was going to go in or not but [it] probably was," said Fish. "It was just his day."
All told, Fish was broken in five of his eight service games.
"Obviously for me it starts out with my serve," said Fish, "and I just didn't have a good rhythm on it, which is okay, and then you try to figure out other ways to win points. Against someone like him, having baseline rallies for every point is tough."
The loss will drop Fish down one spot in the rankings next week. He will become world No. 9 with Serb Janko Tipsarevic taking his spot at No. 8