In Sunday’s Pacific Life Open final, #3 Novak Djokovic took on unseeded Cinderella story Mardy Fish. Fish started out a bit sluggish and perhaps nervous. Djokovic won the first six points of the game and got out to a 3-0 start before Fish started finding his range. He drew it back on serve to 3-2, but then lost the n
ext three games to drop the set 6-2. Djokovic went up 4-2 in the second set and looked like he would be well on his way to easy victory but Fish was able to break back to level the set at 4all. They continued on serve, until seemingly out of nowhere, Fish managed to sneak out a break at 5all before serving out the set 7-5 to take it to a decider.
At the start of the third set it looked like Fish was going to keep it up as he quickly got a 0-40 lead on Djokovic’s service game. But Djokovic saved the three break points with three aces and squashed Fish’s early hopes. Djokovic would break in the next game and take a 3-0 lead. Fish would have no more real chances to get the break back and the two men held until Djokovic served out the set and the match 6-3. For Fish, his sluggish movement and untimely unforced errors (44 to only 29 winners), in addition to his low first serve percentage (40% for the match but only 33% in the third set), proved to be fatal. For Djokovic, he was steadier with the same 29 winners, but only 33 unforced errors.
And so, Djokovic’s fairytale and nearly perfect start to the 2008 season continues with his second title and third ATP Masters Series title overall. He puts a further dent into the points difference between he and Nadal, and, like Erlich and Ram in the doubles, has taken both of the required events that have been played this season thus far. For Fish, he will rise from the brink of falling out of the top 100 to #40 and will be the #3 ranked American once again. Hopefully he will be able to stay healthy – something he has had trouble doing – and keep this form up as he has very few points to defend until the summer.
In their speeches on court after the match, Fish thanked the crowd for getting him through several of his matches this week and proclaimed it is one of his favorite tournaments on the tour. Djokovic gave credit to Fish for his outstanding run and said he should be ranked higher than his current ranking.
