Fish into Delray Beach semis

Mardy Fish reached his second consecutive ATP semifinal in the Delray Beach International with an untroubled victory over Colombia’s Alejandro Falla 6-1, 6-4 Friday night.

Saturday under the lights, Fish will meet the former US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, who defeated South African Kevin Anderson, 6-4, 6-4.

For Fish, a champion here in 2009, this was just another small step toward his ambition of reaching the world’s top 10. Last November, the slimmed-down 29-year-old Floridian, who now makes his home in California, got as high as No 16.

“I went straight into the top 20 at the age of 21 on my first full year on the tour,” Fish recalled. “Maybe it came a bit too easily. Maybe I wasn’t as focused as I might have been. Now if there is one thing I am happiest about, it is my mental attitude. I suppose I have matured.”

The maturing process has included marriage and the realization of what a strict diet could do for his game and general well being. But, equally perhaps, it has enabled Fish to realize that although tennis may be a very individualistic and seemingly solitary sport, a player’s career does not take place in a vacuum. There are a lot of other people involved.

Obviously his parents have played their part and his mother received an on-court thank you for having done his laundry the previous night.

“But I think I may have been guilty of taking some people for granted earlier in my career,” Fish admitted. “There are people around me who invest emotionally as well as giving their time. I am playing for them as well. My trainer, Christian LoCascio, works as hard as anyone I’ve ever seen and the USTA have helped me a ton, too, allowing me to share David Nainkin as a coach. They have all helped me change my life and made me mentally stronger.

"Inconsistency has always been a problem throughout my career — you only need to look at the up-and-down graph of my ranking — but now as I see the years passing by, I really want to get out there and win the matches I should win.”

As long ago as 2003, Fish was winning his first ATP title in Stockholm and reaching the final, not only at Delray, but at the Masters Series event in Cincinnati. A year later he won a silver medal in singles at the Athens Olympics.

But injuries intervened, his ranking tumbled and the weight never came off. Not, at least, until 2009 when strict dieting turned him into a leaner and, in some ways, meaner athlete. But more aware, too, and that should enable Mardy to finally do full justice to his exceptional talents.

Saturday’s first semifinal will see Kei Nishikori, who won the Delray title at the age of 18 in 2008, play the experienced Serb, Janko Tipsarevic who is enjoying one of his best starts to the season.