A trimmed-down Fish doesn't mind the heat

FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. - It was a day when Italian ices melted before they could be served. It was a day that the most coveted seats at the U.S. Open weren't those closest to the courts but those in the shade.

It was the ideal day, in other words, for Mardy Fish.

Having pared 30 pounds from his 6-foot-2 frame following knee surgery last September, the 170-pound Fish arrived in New York for his 10th U.S. Open this week boasting his highest seeding ever (19th).

It was his reward for a surge up the rankings this summer that included back-to-back victories and an 11-match winning streak for the first time in his career - achievements that Fish, 28, attributes to a wholesale overhaul of his diet and a deeper commitment to fitness.

So it was no surprise that Fish felt great - "fresh," even, he said - as temperatures inched above 95 degrees (well above 100 on court) and his opponent, Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic called for a trainer midway through the fifth set of their first-round tangle.

Though not everything unfolded as Fish would have liked (he chided himself afterward for being too passive in the second and third sets), the resurgent American found that fitness was not among his concerns.

After falling behind two sets to one, he ramped up his aggression and closed the oddly seesaw match, 6-0, 3-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1, gaining strength down the stretch as the hard-hitting Czech wilted.

Statistics pinpointed what Fish did well, firing 24 aces and blasting 52 winners to 30 unforced errors.

But his real advantage, he insisted, was the physical transformation he has worked so hard to achieve and the confidence it has given him.

"It's huge," Fish said. "I can feel how the other guy's feeling. I can see that, you know. I can see that he's struggling to move out to his forehand even, early in the fourth set, even when he won the third set.

". . . It's a good feeling, sort of, to wear down a player and know that all the hard work that you put in just paid off right there."

Fish decided to overhaul his diet upon realizing, after nearly a decade slogging away on the pro tour without consistently good results, that he was simply too heavy for his frame. One knee needed surgery; the other was chronically sore.