Untold: Breaking Point (2021) Movie Script
[man] This tape is about mental toughness.
Achieving mental toughness
is no easy task,
but if you follow the steps
outlined on this tape,
you'll get real results.
Number one, 100% fighting effort.
That means no whining,
no complaining, no escape routes.
[Mardy] I'm a couple hours away
from the biggest match of my career.
The biggest match of my life.
I was just curled up in a ball,
trying desperately to figure out a way
to just stop having these thoughts.
[man] One hundred percent fighting effort
And I'm about to play
the greatest player of all time
to get into the quarterfinals
of the US Open.
[man] That means no whining,
no complaining, no escape routes.
[Mardy] This match, I had physically
and mentally and emotionally trained
for my entire life.
And now, in the car ride
to Arthur Ashe Stadium,
my mind is a million places.
All of a sudden, just boom!
[atmospheric music plays]
The thoughts just came flooding in,
more and more and more.
[echoing] Just nonstop thoughts.
And my heart is just racing.
Big, deep breaths.
[deep breaths]
[man] No complaining. No escape routes.
[Mardy]
I'm Googling "what is anxiety disorder,"
"panic disorder," "mental health."
I'm listening to talks on YouTube
of how to deal with it, how to beat it,
thinking,
"How am I gonna get through this?"
[deep breathing]
I mean, just basically,
I'm I'm desperate.
I didn't know what to do.
[unsettling music builds]
[silence]
["Your Sweet Love" by Lee Hazlewood plays]
Stranger's arms
Reach out to me
'Cause they know
I'm so lonely
Then my mind
Goes back to you
And your sweet love
Sees me through
[deep breaths]
[newsman] Tennis in this country
seems to be on the decline.
Now some people are trying
to do something about that.
[newswoman]
The United States Tennis Association
is setting up a nationwide program
to develop and support talented players
through regional tennis centers.
We're developing
a national training center
where we would take
our top young players,
give them a scholarship,
and we will have some more champions.
This is our map, which shows
all of the area training centers
that we have around the United States.
We're gonna take the best thousand kids,
and the other 500 of you, you are out.
Now we are gonna leave 200.
The rest of you are out.
Now we have ten, and out of these ten,
we must develop a champion.
[tense string music playing]
Everything about American sports
is the best
and about immediate gratification,
and, you know, tennis was no different.
At that point, American tennis
was sort of on the back nine.
[newswoman] Tennis officials say
America's best are getting older.
[newsman] And many around men's tennis
are worried about its future.
[Kevin] So, enter the USTA,
who really felt the pressure
and invested tremendous resources
building the next top American.
[newsman] There are endless demands
from corporate sponsors,
the media, and fans
for the new hope of US tennis.
So, even at the academy level,
having an American player
who potentially could play
at the next level was a commodity.
But let's just be frank.
When I first watched Mardy,
there was nothing that you would say,
"This guy's a prodigy.
This guy's gonna be world class."
There was the part that was flat-footed.
There was the part that you'd go,
"That forehand's pretty terrible."
But man, his mind intrigued me.
Mardy would pull you wide.
The short ball would come.
He'd snap this cross-court angle,
and you'd be like, "Wow, shit. That's
That's a big shot."
So I went to the USTA and said,
"I want Mardy at Saddlebrook."
[gentle music playing]
[Sally] Saddlebrook was
a big turning point.
A lot of tears.
I went to orientation there
and cried all the way home,
uh, when we left him.
We enjoyed having him around the house.
All of a sudden, you know, he's gone.
[Sally] And I never imagined him
leaving at 15.
[Mardy] I lived in a small town.
Vero Beach, Florida.
So I remember
the first time that I moved in
was a real eye-opening experience.
Real pros were there.
Jim Courier trained there.
Pete Sampras trained there at the time.
And I got to watch them train
and really feel like a tennis player.
[Kevin] Here at Saddlebrook,
we're experts at developing
some of the best players in the world.
Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis,
Andy Roddick, Jennifer Capriati.
The US tennis elite.
We really believe mental toughness
is one of the biggest defining things
about them as as competitors.
[man] Within the player
development program,
we'll really work on developing
their physical skills,
their emotional skills,
their mental skills,
so that they can become
a successful professional
and do well in Grand Slams and Davis Cup.
[Kevin] So we had to instill
that mental discipline early on.
It was something that was
never gonna be instinctual with a child.
[Mardy] You'd get up in the morning.
There are times
when you'd hit even before school.
I don't know how hard the school was,
but we played a lot of tennis.
[Kevin] We really believe
in practice makes permanent,
and you have to practice perfectly.
[Mardy] And then we'd work out in the gym.
Go to school for a few hours.
You're back on the tennis courts
by one o'clock.
Boom. Groundhog Day the next day.
And then twice a week,
we'd go into a conference room,
and we'd watch a mental toughness video
of Jim Courier and Pete Sampras.
[man] Achieving mental toughness
is no easy task.
But if you follow the steps
outlined on this tape,
you'll get real results.
I learned at that age the philosophy of,
"Put your head down."
"You go about your business
and not show them any weakness at all."
That means no whining, no complaining,
no escape routes.
[man 2] Can you create a champion?
Mold them into the next Tiger Woods
or Michael Jordan?
[newsman] At the Saddlebrook Resort
in Florida,
a group of promising kids
live and train away from home.
[newswoman] But only a handful
will make it as professionals.
It is simply and brutally
the survival of the physically strongest
and the mentally toughest.
[keyboard clacking]
It was pretty jaw-dropping to see
how tough a lot of these players were.
But Andy Roddick
This kid was different.
[grunts]
His competitiveness was different
than any of the kids that you played.
Andy had this fire to him.
Very intense, ruthless on the court,
to the point
where I would give in a little bit.
He wanted to win almost too bad.
[Andy] A win, I've got a prediction.
[boy 2] What is it?
I'll win today.
That is one of, if not the main reasons
why he had his hall of fame career.
[interviewer] Andy, what would you like
to achieve in tennis?
Just to be the best player
I can work to be.
[interviewer] Who'd you like to be like?
Andre Agassi? Pete Sampras?
[Andy] Probably Pete Sampras
and Andre Agassi.
When Andy ended up at the academy,
there was a buzz about this kid.
He was really
something extraordinarily different.
People would go by on the tennis court,
and everybody would stop
and watch Andy serve.
I was practicing with Mardy one day,
and I was pissed off in practice.
I walked up,
did a little half-motion off of two feet.
I just hit it as hard as I could,
um, and it went in,
and then I just did that
for the next 15 years.
[Kevin] When Andy and Mardy
left the academy,
Andy was on a track
to be a world-class player.
[inaudible]
So Mardy was really meant
to serve Andy's needs.
The Roddicks knew that Andy
needed peers to practice with.
They also knew
that it was important for Andy
to have friends and to enjoy it,
and Mardy fit that bill.
[camera clicks]
He was the guy that could
keep up with him, could have fun with him,
but, um, ultimately, you know,
was that kid to practice with.
[wind chimes tinkling]
[Mardy] When I left, I was 16 years old,
and the Roddicks were nice enough
to say, "You can live with us."
Didn't know them personally at the time,
but I moved in,
and I had a bedroom across the hall.
I think he was a bit more
of a laid-back beach kid,
and then he comes into our house,
and he's going, "What is going on?"
But my dad said,"Hey, listen.
You can stay here. It's a choice."
"But if you are here,
then I think we operate a certain way."
My dad was a tough man,
and I say that in a great way.
You know, army guy. There was no BS.
His father would wake me up
at, like, five o'clock in the morning
and go, "Mardy, it's time to stretch."
And I'm like,
"It's five o'clock, Mr. Roddick."
"I can't do it. I'm too tired."
"Get up. It's time to stretch."
It was such an intense level
of training and competitiveness.
Now my competition was across the hallway.
If he was playing better,
it was in my face at dinner.
[Mardy] We competed at everything,
whether it was a video game,
basketball,
girls.
We weren't best friends. We were brothers.
So we could yell at each other,
almost come to fistfights,
and the next day,
it would be super fun good times.
It was great for me
to have talent like Mardy close.
I think ultimately
it was good for the both of us.
[Mardy] The Roddicks took me
from a top player in the country
to a top player in the world.
[presenter] Second in the nation
is not too shabby.
Mardy Fish.
[cheering and applause]
[Kevin] When Andy and Mardy turned pro,
the expectation for an American
to be good early was
it was important.
The US tennis fan
was so spoiled for so many years.
Sampras, Agassi, Courier,
Connors, McEnroe.
I mean, you went through decades
of American dominance in tennis.
[cameras clicking]
[Andy] Growing up, I caught the tail-end
of the Connors and McEnroe generation.
I was at the '91 US Open.
I remember sneaking into the stadium.
The atmosphere was insane to me.
[cameras clicking]
Connors was going nuts
and just being a rock star.
[crowd cheering]
That night had such a huge impact on me.
It changed my life and my aspirations.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Wow!
[Mardy] The American tennis
that came before Roddick and I
was an era that we'll never see again.
[cheering]
I grew up watching these guys
my whole life.
[crowd cheering]
Americans competing
Slam after Slam for titles.
[crowd cheering]
We were in the golden age.
[crowd cheering]
I saw Chang win in '89.
[grunts]
I was glued to the TV
when Andre won his first Slam.
[crowd cheering]
For my ninth birthday, my mom took me
to see Pete win the '90 US Open.
[cheering and applause]
Jim Courier won four Slams in '91-'92.
[laughs]
So you had
this very special era of tennis,
a 20-year history of having
the best players in the world.
Now you had Andy, Mardy.
That was what they were expected
to be and to do.
[Andy] Then all of a sudden, at 17, 18,
this legendary generation
was really pushing me and Mardy.
on Pete Sampras's jet.
[Mardy] There was this huge push
coming from the great champions
for us to carry this legacy.
[man] Jesus Christ!
What the hell is going on?
[Mardy] Meanwhile, my buddies
are seniors in high school.
[man] Got you, man!
[Mardy] So it was
a really interesting way to grow up.
[Andy] We certainly felt
that responsibility.
Over there and snap it.
[Andy] We knew the history of it.
We were there. We got to see it all.
[announcer] Please welcome
the captain of the US Davis Cup team,
John McEnroe!
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] Andre Agassi!
[crowd cheering]
Pete Sampras!
[crowd cheering]
[crowd cheering]
[cheering and applause]
[silence]
[Mardy] 2003, I end up making
my first final in Cincinnati,
which is a big Masters Series event
right before the US Open.
Big points, big prize money on the line.
There's tens of thousands of people
watching in the stands and on TV.
Just turned 21 years old.
This match could change my life forever.
And I played Andy.
[theme music plays]
[host] Until now, comparisons
to the great American champions
of the past two decades have fallen short.
But Andy Roddick versus Mardy Fish
in an all-American final next,
live on ESPN2.
[crowd cheering]
[Andy] Four years ago, we were playing
at our coach's apartment complex.
Now we're playing for a lot of prestige
at this huge tournament in Cincinnati,
which we had grown up watching.
[commentator] Mardy Fish spent
about a year in the Roddick house
down there in South Florida.
You know, we've dreamt
about playing each other, um,
you know, in a big tournament like this,
uh, ever since we lived with each other.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Mardy has watched
Andy Roddick's rise,
and he said yesterday,
"I always thought it was a matter of time
before I hopefully will do the same."
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] Mardy Fish has come out
and has proven
that he can match Andy Roddick.
He's not intimidated by Roddick at all.
Andy knew my game
better than any player did,
and I knew Andy's game
better than any player did.
And so I used it to my advantage.
-[crowd cheers]
-[commentator] Wow, wow, wow!
There's no mistake on that one.
[commentator 2] Against all odds,
Mardy Fish has won the first set
of this championship match
at the Masters Series.
[Mardy] Just one of those matches
with two heavyweights
going back and forth.
[crowd exclaiming]
[commentator] Oh!
Andy Roddick wins the second set. [laughs]
What a match!
He was so competitive.
It was so mentally tough.
[yells]
[Mardy] But I wasn't gonna give in.
-[crowd cheers]
-[commentator] Match point for Mardy Fish.
All of a sudden, I have match point.
I'm like, "Oh shit, I have match point."
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Biggest moment
of Mardy Fish's life.
[Mardy] He's serving.
He's got the fastest serve of all time.
I wonder what he's gonna do.
Late in the third set,
it was a chess match.
Mardy knew I wanted
to get to his forehand side
because I've hit that serve against him
a thousand times.
I'm going, "He's gonna sell out forehand.
I know he is."
He knows that my forehand's worse,
so he's probably gonna serve
to my forehand.
But he knows I know that,
so he's probably gonna go to my backhand.
No, he's definitely
not gonna go to my backhand.
Wait a minute.
He must know that I know that.
-[Mardy] Oh!
-[commentator] Are you kidding?
Not a lot of speed, 86 miles an hour.
Right in the wheelhouse of Mardy Fish.
Shit. I knew he went
kick serve to my backhand.
That would've been
the number one play for me.
But I was lucky enough
to get another match point.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] This is the time
for intense concentration
and not let your head get involved.
[Mardy] He's bouncing the ball,
and I'm like, "This is your chance."
"He's definitely not gonna go
to my backhand again,
so he's gotta go bomb serve
to my forehand."
"But wait, he knows that I know
that he knew what I knew"
"my backhand. No, he's definitely
not gonna go to my backhand."
"He's probably gonna serve"
[hits ball]
No fucking way.
Kick serve out wide, again.
[commentator] Oh! [chuckles]
[crowd cheering]
[inaudible]
[Mardy] And I overthought it,
and I missed it.
[Andy] I remember him giving me
a little look after I hit it, like,
"We might be the only people
that realize the significance
of what you tried to pull there."
[Mardy] I end up losing the match
seven-six in the third.
My first massive heartbreak kind of loss.
[crowd cheering]
And it still hurts.
[crowd cheering]
First and foremost,
I'd like to congratulate Mardy.
I mean, it's hard to try to kick
someone's ass who you like so much.
[crowd laughing and cheering]
[Kevin] That to me
was that match, defining.
Andy was now the next top American player.
And then [whoosh]
you know, became
number one player in the world.
[commentator] Talking about the US Open,
a year ago,
we're talking about Andy Roddick,
but now we're talking about him
being seeded, Patrick,
or winning the whole thing.
How things have changed for Andy Roddick.
I took the responsibility and the weight,
the expectation seriously.
I was fine-tuned, I was prepared,
I was practiced.
[crowd cheering]
Purely from a, you know,
little kid dreaming, growing up,
there'd be something very special
about getting to play at the US Open.
You work towards it
and react one way or the other.
You freeze up or you go get it,
and that day, I got it.
[commentator] Roddick, one serve away.
[announcer] Game, set, match.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] I don't believe it.
[crowd cheering]
Before that, I was a tennis player.
After, it was different, more than tennis.
[inaudible]
[inaudible]
[applause]
I can't even begin to tell you
how excited I am to host SNL.
[fans cheering]
-[woman] Andy!
-Andy, sign your name here!
No more "What's it feel like
to be the future of American tennis" crap.
[laughter]
No more.
Andy's success is amazing and awesome.
This guy's your friend and your brother,
and you've been rooting for him
your whole life.
[Andy speaking indistinctly]
[crowd exclaims and laughs]
[Andy] You're such an ass!
Oh! [laughs]
-Yeah, so what was the question?
-[laughter]
There wasn't a jealousy towards it,
but there was a,
"Man, I wish I could have done that."
[Kevin] Andy's US Open win
[applause]
it was amazing.
We finally have an American on track
to win multiple Grand Slam titles.
[applause]
[producer] So why did the bubble burst
for American tennis?
I think the bubble
was named Federer, you know?
[tense music plays]
He figured out a way to win every time.
Every single time.
[gentle music playing]
[Andy] Roger's the best defensive
and best offensive player in the world
at the same time.
How do you How do you attack that?
Roger had this aura
of invincibility about him
where you just could never breathe,
'cause he could turn it like that.
Boom. Point's over.
-[yells]
-[camera clicks]
He's the most-liked athlete,
universally, in the world.
[applause]
You speak 17 languages,
and your hair looks amazing,
and it's fantastic, and you don't sweat.
[grunts]
[grunts]
[Andy] I'm not jealous of his success.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator speaking Italian]
[Andy] I'm jealous of the ease
at which he's able to navigate
being the greatest of all time.
[Mardy] We played
in the final of 2004 in Halle.
Roger went up 6-0, 3-0
in, like, 25 minutes.
-[applause]
-I'm like, "Unbelievable."
"This guy's gonna beat me 6-0, 6-0
in the finals of a tournament."
I think he probably felt bad
for all of the people
that had paid money to come watch,
and I'm still, to this day, convinced
that he prolonged the match
a little bit longer so it was 6-0, 6-3.
He made it, like, an hour.
-[announcer speaking indistinctly]
-[cheering and applause]
[Mardy] And then,
when it couldn't get any worse,
in 2005,
a guy named Nadal came around.
[commentator] Amazing!
[cheers]
[Mardy] And then 2007,
a guy named Novak Djokovic.
[commentator] Oh my goodness!
Are you kidding me?
[Mardy] And I'm like, "Whoa."
"The top three greatest players
of all time in the exact same generation."
[Andy] It became this gargantuan effort,
trying to beat the guys that had become
the Mount Rushmore of the game.
[Andy] And all the while
taking criticisms.
[dramatic music playing]
But my dad instilled that army mentality
where if you take it on the chin,
you get up, and you do it again.
I had to get up a lot.
[crowd cheering]
King of the world.
[man] I'm the king of the world!
["Stay in Line" by Trey Gruber plays]
[Mardy] Looking back,
this point in my career,
I was in a really good place
emotionally and mentally.
I felt like I was so lucky
to play professional tennis.
Just an absolute dream.
- Oh, stay in line
-[inaudible]
Oh, stay in line
[Mardy] I went to Asia.
I went to Singapore.
I went to Belgium.
I went to, you know, France, uh
All over. You know, all over the
All over the world.
Reckon what you need, you'll find
[Mardy] I loved hanging out with friends
and be able to eat what I wanted
and drink what I wanted.
[laughs]
I think we're gonna go
check out the local nightlife,
so we'll see you guys tomorrow.
[laughs]
It was during this time I met my wife,
who I call an angel.
He was never the cocky kind of athlete.
He wasn't boastful.
He was, like, a fun, goofy guy.
Melted my heart, actually.
It was a very happy time for everybody.
Watching Mardy with my love for the game,
it was fun.
[laughing] Really fun.
I was as amazed as anybody was.
He's just a normal guy.
You used to say,
"What's Mardy doing out there"
-What's Mardy doing out there?
-"on a stadium court?"
-[crowd cheering]
- Lately I've been a stranger
[commentator] Open court. Roddick's in.
And there it is.
[crowd cheering]
[interviewer] What are your goals
for the rest of the year?
I think the ultimate goal
is to maybe beat Andy.
-[laughs]
-[crowd laughs and cheers]
[interviewer] Oh, that's too good.
[Mardy] Honestly,
just sort of a normal career,
and I didn't have success.
[commentator] Mardy's the guy
a lot of people have been waiting for him
to break through.
[Jim] He's been out playing now
for a couple of years
It's been a big struggle for him
and try and be up there
near where Andy Roddick is.
People that are considered
the greatest of all time,
they have this thing,
"We'll rip your head off."
"We'll tear you apart.
We'll stomp on you on our way to victory."
The freaking ball was right on the line!
At that point in his career, I don't know
that Mardy was prepared to do that.
It wasn't because I didn't want it.
I legitimately didn't understand it.
I didn't get it.
[Andy] I can normally tell at 17 or 18
whether a kid gets it.
It doesn't ever correct itself.
Never corrects itself.
Mardy's one of the only guys
I've ever seen
who figured it out and corrected it.
[loud droning]
[tense music playing]
[Mardy] So, 2009,
I got a hyperbaric chamber,
which pumps oxygen into your body
and makes things heal faster,
and I basically slept in there,
would take naps in there,
just be in it nonstop.
And I legitimately had this "Aha"
look-in-the-mirror moment where I'm like,
"I'm 28 years old,
at the back end of my career,
and I'm not gonna get
everything out of my career
that I could've and should've."
I desperately wanted to make sure
that when I was done playing,
I can put my head on my pillow every night
knowing that I tried
everything I could possibly do.
So I said to myself,
"Let's do this.
Let's really fucking do this."
[Christian] I worked for the USTA
for a little over ten years.
I remember getting that call from Mardy.
He wanted to find out
if he really dedicated himself 100%
the way Andy did,
if he would be as successful.
And that's when he convinced me
to move out to LA,
live with him and Stacey,
and see if we could make him better.
[Stacey] He sat down with myself
and his trainer, Christian, and said
he had so much more
that he wanted to accomplish.
[Mardy] I told Christian
the ultimate goal of mine
is getting to London,
making the World Tour Final.
[Christian] The year-end finals
are thecrme de la crme.
Only the eight best players in the world
get invited to the year-end finals.
So my goal was to get Mardy
as fit as possible.
And first was diet, to lose the weight.
I was 203 pounds.
So I set out to lose 12 pounds.
I cut out alcohol, pizza, desserts, fries.
I was starving every day.
[Christian] So next we started to train
as hard as we could
all day, every day.
[Mardy] When I got back on the court,
I told my coach, "Give me a racket."
"Put one ball on this side,
the next ball on the other side,
the next ball on that side, and let's
just do that for hours and hours."
If you want to beat
Roger and Rafa and Novak,
you gotta have the leg strength
of a football player,
the lungs of a marathon runner,
and on top of that,
an unbelievable level of focus.
So we would do dynamic warm-up exercises,
movement drills, medicine ball throws,
side-to-side, cross-training, suicides.
[Mardy] Now I'm getting fit.
I'm not getting tired.
I can train for hours.
I can run forever,
and it becomes like a religion,
like a lifestyle.
"I'm gonna play two sets with you,
two sets with you."
"In the afternoon, I'll play two sets
with you. We'll do it again and again."
Ice everything down,
and do it all over again the next day.
It was extreme, for better or worse,
but it was like that with everything.
Going to bed at 7:30
and never seeing friends anymore.
[dog whimpers]
It didn't leave much time
for anything else.
[Mardy] From that point on,
every single decision that I made
had to do with my career.
I was obsessed.
It was never-ending.
I could never be too fit.
[Mardy] All of a sudden,
two and a half months go by,
I jump on the scale, and I weighed myself.
172. I'd lost 31 pounds.
So he really
He turned himself into an absolute beast.
Now the season starts.
Still, to this day, I don't know
why I came to this conclusion,
but I decided to go to Newport.
["Circuital" by My Morning Jacket playing]
[Mardy] Really small tournament
in this beautiful little town
in New England.
But said to myself
that I had to win this tournament.
"I have to win this tournament."
Got all the way to the quarters,
and I play a buddy of mine,
Frank Dancevic.
[commentator 1] Mardy Fish,
30 pounds lighter.
It was kind of jolting, Jimmy,
to see up close.
[Mardy] And I lose the first set quickly.
[commentator 2] And there it is.
First set to the young Belgian.
[commentator 1]
It's hard to know what Fish is thinking.
[Mardy] "Shit, man,
this guy's gonna beat me."
All of the sacrifice that I had made.
I had changed my life.
[tense droning]
"I have to win this match."
If I didn't do something to stop this guy,
then I don't know.
"Is this gonna happen?
Am I gonna turn my career around?"
So we come to the changeover.
I remember walking up to him,
and out of nowhere
[inaudible]
"There's no way you can fucking beat me.
You can't beat me. No chance."
"I'm gonna fucking beat you.
I'm coming back to win."
"There's no way you can fucking win."
And Frank's like,
"What? What is going on?"
The umpire's like, "Mardy, calm down."
[man] Mardy!
And I couldn't believe it,
but it actually got him out of his rhythm.
[grunting]
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] And Mardy Fish
Finally, Mardy Fish comes roaring back.
Big kicker. Open court. There it is.
-[crowd cheering]
-Mardy Fish.
Unbelievable last point.
Fitness prevailed there,
and, uh, you know,
I've worked really hard.
Christian and I have worked really hard.
[Mardy] I went on to win that tournament.
[man] There he is,
our champion, Mardy Fish.
-Congratulations!
-[crowd cheering]
[Mardy] I did whatever it took to win.
I lost a friendship,
but I had to do it.
Like, this match was the turning point
that changed my life.
Really did. It changed my life.
["Circuital" continues playing]
[commentator]
Terrific shot-making by Fish.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] That's so good.
Match points.
[commentator] And Mardy Fish
winning Newport and Atlanta.
Two tournaments in a row.
Holy shit. Mardy just started winning
back to back to back matches.
[commentator] What a point by Fish!
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Ten matches in a row now
for Mardy Fish.
[Andy] The new Mardy shows up,
and all of a sudden,
he has half of the face
that he used to have.
He was winning the matches every week.
You sit back and you go, "Huh."
["Circuital" by My Morning Jacket
continues playing]
[crowd cheering]
-[commentator 1] Fish got there!
-[commentator 2] Wow!
[Christian] He flipped a switch,
and he would get super aggressive,
super focused,
just super intense.
-[crowd exclaims]
-[commentator] That is world class.
Now I'm just consistently
week in, week out,
making the semis and finals
of tournaments.
Pretty soon it got to the stage of playing
the greatest players of all time.
[commentator] Mardy Fish and Andy Murray
getting ready to play on Center Court.
-[commentator 1] Wow.
-[commentator 2] That's so good!
Mardy Fish beats Andy Murray.
[crowd cheering]
I took that confidence of winning,
and that catapulted me.
[commentator] He's gonna face
one of the all-time greats.
[grunts]
[grunts]
-[commentator] Wow.
-[crowd cheering]
Rafael Nadal struggling
not with the heat, but with Mardy Fish.
Oh, do you like that?
Fish continuing to punish Nadal.
And that brings Mardy triple match point.
Yes!
Mardy Fish has defeated Rafael Nadal
for the first time in his career.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] What a great effort.
He got a standing ovation.
Everybody's so happy for Mardy Fish.
[crowd cheering]
[Mardy] Now I'm top 20 in the world.
If I could win just a couple of matches,
I'd legitimately have a chance
of making the World Tour Final.
[interviewer] What would it mean
to qualify for London?
A lot. There are about 100 guys
at the start of the year
that have ambitions
of being in London at the end of the year,
and I hear everything that has to do
with the World Tour Finals is amazing,
and I'd love to
love to experience it for myself.
[Mardy] But then I played Andy.
And I'd lost to Andy nine times in a row.
[commentator 1] And what a match
we have tonight
with Andy Roddick against Mardy Fish,
his good buddy.
[commentator 2]Mardy Fish, he's lost
nine times in a row to Andy Roddick.
[Andy] When we played
against each other,
I wanted to make it physical,
I wanted to make it gross.
I wanted to drag him
into the gutter with me.
[crowd cheers]
He never was prepared to do that.
[commentator] I just think Roddick
still mentally a little bit tougher.
[Mardy] I had lost to him so much
because he was so mentally tough,
and he would always out-physical me.
But now I had this new body
that could kinda outwork him.
[Andy] All of a sudden, he's inviting
to get into 10, 15, 20-ball rallies.
He was willing to get dirty at that point.
["Circuital" continues playing]
[commentator]
Oh, how do you explain that one?
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] And that brings Mardy
to triple match point.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator 1]
Mardy Fish beats Andy Roddick.
[commentator 2] Nobody beats Mardy Fish
ten times in a row.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator]
Mardy got here off the court.
Congratulations. Skipping
those french fries was worth it, right?
It definitely was.
This is one of the best wins
I've had, obviously, by far.
[crowd cheering]
Mardy did what Andy always feared
Mardy could do,
and then it happened,
then it happened twice.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Victorious.
Just the second time.
[Andy] At that point, I'm going,
"Maybe I'm not the better player anymore."
Maybe ten years later
than we both expected,
but I'm sure he felt
he was going to his rightful place
to become the top American.
[Dr. Phil] For those who may not be
tennis fans, this is Mardy Fish.
He is the number-one-ranked
US tennis player in America.
[cheers and applause]
[host] You're gonna be 30 years old.
For now, the number one American player.
What took you so long?
[laughs]
"Holy shit.I'm the number one player
in this whole country."
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
See, I knew it.
He really could be one of the best.
And then he got to seven in the world,
and I was like, "Oh my gosh."
Yes! Pow, that's our Mardy.
[crowd cheering]
[yells]
[Mardy] My ranking went way up.
I finished the year at a career high,
seven in the world.
And so I told my trainer,
and I told my wife,
"Pack up. London is calling."
When I qualified,
I got a call from Jim Courier,
who was number one in the world
and won four majors.
He was our Davis Cup captain.
He said, "What are you doing?"
I said, "Nothing. I'm in the bathroom."
Like, you know, whatever.
I didn't I didn't bring it up.
And he goes,
"Take a look in the mirror."
"That's a guy that's
top ten in the world."
And I went, "Damn right."
[applause]
[announcer] Mardy Fish!
[cheering and applause]
[emotional music playing]
It's an incredibly special event.
Just incredible tennis players.
Federer. Nadal.
Djokovic. Murray.
Fish.
Does that fit, you know?
Does that really fit?
And for some reason, it just
it felt right.
There's a reason why, uh,
all of us are here.
Uh, we've had great results
throughout the year,
and I'm actually the only non-European
that's, uh that's here.
[crowd cheering]
[Christian] It was validation.
It was relief. It was exuberance.
It was everything
that we'd been working towards.
You don't expect your child
to be doing these crazy things.
There's Mardy out there.
He's in the club.
[Mardy] I lost a close battle to the king,
Roger Federer.
But I didn't care, man. I really didn't.
The memories
of being one of those eight guys,
one of the most special moments
of my life.
[camera clicking]
Those were the moments where I could
look back and say it was all worth it.
[interviewer] What are the main things
you'll take out of this year?
That it's possible to be here, playing,
knowing that I can make it.
It just gives you confidence
you can do it again.
And so, I hope that when I turn 30,
it doesn't mean that I'll go backwards.
[helicopter whirring]
[Andy] Being the number one American,
it's an amazing thing.
It's a dream come true.
But there's a lot of pressure around it.
The higher the stakes,the harder it gets,
the more responsibility.
You become so invested
that it hurts when you don't win.
And the psychological part of it
is brutal.
The toughest moments of your life,
you're out there alone
on an island by yourself,
and it's a terrible place to be, you know,
where you can't show it,
but you're feeling these insane emotions.
[deep breath]
[Andy] And the ugly part of it is
that it'll start a young age.
At 12, you're like, "That guy's soft."
You don't want that reputation.
So I have a reputation
that I was pretty tough.
But I just faked it real well.
I was super insecure.
Terrible during Slams to be around.
I have a hard time eating
a certain type of sports bar now
because it makes me nervous,
'cause that's what I associate it with,
and I can't actually swallow it.
[director] We're gonna try
a picture on this. And action!
[clapperboard strikes]
[tense music plays]
-[woman] Cut!
-[director] That's a cut.
[Mardy] 2012, I had some different
opportunities now all of a sudden,
not only to play some tournaments
I'd never played before,
but the the appearance fees
were a lot different.
So we decided to pack my schedule early.
I started the year leaving for Australia
and lost in the first round.
[commentator] A disappointing result
for Mardy Fish.
[Mardy] And then going back to LA
for about six days.
Flying over to Switzerland for Davis Cup.
Back for four days.
Your body's like, "What the hell?
There's supposed to be sleep."
And then all the way back to Marseille.
The loss, first round in Marseille.
[commentator] I don't know
what's going on with Mardy.
Not playing the same level.
[Mardy] Flying over to Dubai.
Dubai, I started taking a ton of Ambien
just to try to get on time zones,
but I lost the second round in Dubai.
[commentator] He's top ten in the world.
Mardy should be winning.
[Mardy] Now the stress
is starting to mount.
Pressure is starting to mount.
[yells indistinctly]
[speaking indistinctly]
[interviewer] What's happening
to US men's tennis?
Obviously,
we're not doing very well right now.
Mardy, it's a great effort
for him to reach the top ten,
but we need to get better athletes,
we need to get hungrier players.
Believe me,
we're wondering the same thing.
All of the hopes and criticisms
of past number-one Americans,
they were all heaped on Mardy.
[reporter 1] Fish in a big hole.
-[reporter 2] Fish struggles
-[reporter 3] Continues to have trouble
[reporter 4]
Very disappointing forMardy Fish.
[interviewer] Ever wonder why
you're in the top ten?
I won a lot of matches last year.
So, um, I didn't just get to eight or nine
in the world by one week.
Mardy wanted to win a Slam
and prove that American tennis was great.
[man] Let's go, Mardy!
[Mardy] I did everything
I could possibly do
to be 100% perfect.
No alcohol.
Stay disciplined.
Make sure you're eating correctly
every day.
It feels like it never ends.
It just feels like it just keeps going.
[Christian ]His mind
would fixate on something.
He He became a different person.
It's almost like something snapped.
I don't know if he spoke to you at all
about the first time in in Miami.
[Mardy] So we get to Miami,
and things were off.
My tennis wasn't necessarily off,
but my mind was off.
[grunts]
[commentator] Another miss from Mardy.
Mardy Fish can't play
much worse than that.
I remember walking off the court.
There was a TV in the locker room.
It was on ESPN with Patrick McEnroe,
my Davis Cup captain.
[inaudible]
And I could hear as I walked in
[Patrick] Mardy Fish, just
There's no other way to say it.
Just a horrendous performance.
I'm like, "Well, first of all,
that's a horrendous take."
And he started
going over and over this in his mind.
[Patrick] horrendous performance
And second of all, why would you say that?
You're my friend.
You're my Davis Cup captain.
We've been through battles together.
Just got bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.
And that's on national TV.
So I heard it, and it hit hard.
It was something that he couldn't control.
Half of it, he's right.
Half of it, I'm like,
"Maybe he's not the only one
saying that type of stuff."
[Patrick] horrendous performance
You know, that all weighed on me big-time.
[rapid heartbeat]
That night, I wake up at 3:00 a.m.,
and my heart is just racing.
-[rapid heartbeat]
-[panting]
"Holy shit, am I having a heart attack?"
"I can't stop this."
"Honest to God, like, I think I'm
I think I'm dying."
-[rapid heartbeat]
-[panting]
So I call Christian.
He doesn't answer the first time.
Call him again. Doesn't answer.
Call him a third time. Just nonstop.
Mardy woke me up.
He was terrified. I was scared as well.
So we had to call the ambulance
and go to the hospital.
[Mardy] They put me on the EKG.
My heart rate was 240 beats per minute.
I've never seen it above 192.
The doctors checked me out, and they said,
"We think we know what it is."
"It's a thing called tachycardia."
There's electricity around your heart.
When those malfunction,
they just fire uncontrolled.
There's a small procedure
that you can do called an ablation.
They put you under for hours and hours.
They go through your groin
and up to your heart.
It was successful.
I had a full checkout.
I was 100% healthy.
They figured out exactly
where the problem was coming from,
and they fixed that problem.
But it turned outthere was
something bigger going on underneath.
[Mardy] After the procedure,
that was the first time that I felt
these uncomfortable thoughts.
I wasn't aware of what they were or why.
I had never been around anyone
with any mental health issue.
I just I didn't know where to go with it.
And no one knew what I was going through,
'cause I had trained myself
to show no weakness.
And that was something
that I was proud of.
But leading up till the US Open,
the thoughts were coming
more and more and more.
Every three days, to every two days,
to every day, to every hour.
But telling other people about it
was showing weakness.
[cameras clicking]
And I didn't know how to handle that.
[cameras clicking]
So I just always kept it inside.
[reflective music playing]
[Andy] The 2012 US Open
is a weird tournament.
For me, it's like, "I can't do
another year of this. It's hard."
"I can't physically prepare again.
I can't mentallyprepare again."
So I I walked away from a career.
All right. Well, thank you all
for, uh for coming. Um
I'll, uh, make this short and sweet. Uh
I've decided that this is gonna be,
uh, my last tournament.
[reporter] You're 30
and 30 is not that old.
Obviously, Federer is 31.
In a sense, you're sort of
retiring early, no?
I didn't wanna make it
through this press conference
without a direct comparison to Roger,
so thank you for that.
[laughter]
Frankly, these guys have gotten
really, really, really good,
and, um, you know, I'm not sure that, um
with compromised health that
that I can do what I wanna do right now.
I look back on that tournament,
I have a little bit of guilt
'cause I'm kind of taking a victory lap,
and I don't know that I knew the depths
of what Mardy was going through.
I don't knowthat I completely understood
what was going on.
[Mardy] Once we got to New York,
my mind had completely consumed me,
all day of every day.
And then Andy retired.
Are you surprised
that he's calling it here at the Open?
Did this catch you off guard at all?
Uh, yeah. I mean, you know, look,
we all have, uh, doubts,
and I never really was able to to realize
exactly how much pressure
he's always been under
at a tournament like this
until last year
when I came in as the top American,
and he's handled that incredibly well
without even telling us,
um, how bad it is.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Possibly the final point
of Andy Roddick's career.
[crowd exclaims]
[announcer] Game, set, match, del Potro.
[cheering and applause]
[man] Andy, it's your moment.
-It's your microphone.
-[chuckles]
Oh, wow.
Since I was a kid, uh,
I've been coming to this tournament,
and I felt lucky just to
to sit where all of you are sitting today
and to watch this game,
and to see the champions
that have come and gone, and, uh
[voice breaking]
I I've loved every minute of it, and, um
[chuckles]
[cheering and applause]
Thank you for everything. I love you,
and thank you, guys. Thank you.
[cheering and applause]
[Mardy] Third round, they scheduled me
for a night match on Arthur Ashe Stadium
when, like, they only scheduled
the big boys for night matches.
And it's not because I'm playing Federer
or Roddick or Nadal.
It was because of me.
That year, people were excited for Mardy.
[reporter] It's been years since
an American won the men's singles title.
Are there any men with a chance
to bring home the title this year?
[reporter 2]Mardy Fish.
He's has been around for a while,
but he's playing great tennis
and ready to win the US Open title.
If you're a fan of American tennis,
root for Mardy Fish.
[both] Mardy Fish.
Yeah, he's the last one standing!
[Kevin] All these trailers that are set up
or all the TV trailers,
the US was watching.
The world was watching.
[commentator] It's night at the US Open.
American players love the nights.
We have seen so much drama
through the years,
-so much electricity in these moments.
-Yeah.
Mardy Fish has worked awfully hard
to get into these moments.
He's seen Andy Roddick, his great friend,
have so many moments like this.
And now he'll turn up the energy.
It's go time here.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome the players.
Mardy Fish and Gilles Simon.
[cheering and applause]
-[fan cheers]
-[fans] Let's go, Mardy! Let's go!
[rhythmic clapping]
[fans] Let's go, Mardy! Let's go!
[rhythmic clapping]
[fan] Go, Mardy!
[grunts]
[crowd exclaims]
[applause]
[crowd exclaims]
[yells] Fuck! Fuck!
It was a really stressful,
emotional roller coaster-type match.
[crowd cheering]
[inaudible]
One of those matches
where you're just on edge.
[crowd] Oh!
[applause]
But again, I'm playing well.
I'm not having
any of these thoughts on the court.
You know, that's my safe haven.
[crowd cheering]
[yells]
[fans] Let's go, Mardy!
[Mardy] That was the first time
I started truly believing
I could win this Grand Slam.
[crowd cheering]
[crowd exclaims, cheers]
[fans] Let's go, Mardy!
[Mardy] I eventually win the third set
in a breaker,
and I sit down at the changeover,
and I calm down just a little bit.
And for some reason,
I glance at the time clock.
[tense droning]
It says 1:15.
"Oh man, it's so late."
"We're only in the fourth set.
This is gonna take forever."
"I'm not gonna get to bed till 4:00 a.m.,
and that's only if I win this set."
And then all of a sudden,
like, out of nowhere,
just boom!
"Oh no."
This is the first time
that this has happened on the court.
Just the whole weight of the stress
came flooding in.
"My body doesn't feel"
"Am I gonna get sick?"
"My health is gonna go"
"Should go to the hospital"
"Heart attack?" "Did I eat too much?"
"Did I eat too little?"
"Did I get enough sleep?"
Just nonstop thoughts.
I can't stop this.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
There's tens of thousands of people
watching in the stands and on TV.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
There was nowhere to go,
and there was no hiding.
[crowd chanting] Mardy! Mardy! Mardy!
[Mardy] I was all of a sudden
[silence]
all alone.
["Five day Morning"
by The Clientele plays]
Mrs. Jones and I
Were dreaming of the moon
[Mardy] My only safe place was now taken.
But deep down, you can't
you can't show it.
[man] Mental toughness
is 100% fighting effort.
No whining, no complaining,
no escape routes.
[Mardy] I have to keep playing.
[cheering and applause]
I remember looking at Christian,
and we both knew something was wrong
and he wasn't himself.
["Five Day Morning" continues playing]
[Mardy] I don't remember anything
of the rest of the match.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
Which is mind-blowing.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
[applause]
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
[cheering]
[Mardy] I'm surprised the last few games
went the way they did.
'Cause I was just in another zone,
on another planet.
-[cheering]
-[commentator] Game, set, and match, Fish.
6-1, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3.
[Mardy] Justin Gimelstob was the sideline.
All I remember saying
was, like, "Please hurry."
Please hurry. I'm not feeling well.
[interviewer]
Roger Federer moving forward.
What will you need to do
to be competitive and try and beat him?
Uh, I have no idea right now,
uh, to be honest. Uh
A lot more than I did today. Um
But we'll try to rest as best we can
and see what we can do.
[interviewer]
Mardy, thanks a lot. Well done.
[crowd cheering]
[Christian] To play Roger at the US Open
on Center Court
to get to the quarterfinal,
this is whatthe number-one-ranked
American player does.
Something he kind of had worked
his whole life to get to
and have the opportunity to play.
It's like a tennis player's dream.
[reporter] It's Labor Day
at the US Open,
and here in New York, it's a day
when champions will be hard at work.
Roger Federer against American Mardy Fish,
and we'll return to CBS after this word.
[tense music playing]
[Mardy] I wake up the next day thinking,
"How am I gonna get through this?"
Trying desperately to figure out a way
to just stop having these thoughts.
It kinda just all came out
that he was grappling with thoughts
that were, you know, disturbing him.
And he was scared.
[reporter] And there he is.
World number one Roger Federer
arriving for his match
against American hopeful Mardy Fish.
It was tough for me to sit back and know
that my friend was going through this,
so I shared my difficulties
that I had in my life with him.
And
I remember Christian saying
I had depression, anxiety issues myself,
and how I had taken medication,
and it may be helpful for him.
I just gave him a hug,
reassure him
that everything would be all right.
[Mardy] My wife and I get into the car,
ride to Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The thoughts just start
flooding back again.
[Stacey] I was just scared
for his well-being.
His eyes were filled with tears,
and I remember just reaching over
and holding his hand and saying,
"You don't have to play."
"What do you mean,
'You don't have to play'? I gotta pl--"
"I have to play."
I had physically and mentally
and emotionally trained my whole life
for that moment.
The thought of pulling out
was just unheard of.
I started thinking for a second. I'm like,
"Wait a minute. I don't have to play."
[Sally] We were all sitting,
waiting to go in.
We got a text from Stacey
saying they were coming,
but something was going on,
and then I remembered
Justin Gimelstob saying,
"If Mardy doesn't play this match,
CBS is gonna kill somebody."
And I remember thinking,
"Oh my God," you know.
"What's happened here?"
[reporter] We're getting official word
that RogerFederer-Mardy Fish match
is not gonna happen.
Mardy Fish has withdrawn.
We got to the court and told the USTA
I actually wasn't gonna play this match.
And I just broke down
right there in front of everyone.
Tennis had just been
taken away from me completely,
and, uh, it all
just kinda came out right there.
[sportscaster] Mardy Fish, who was
scheduled to face Roger Federer,
withdrew due to health concerns
How is this all manifesting itself
to the point where he has to withdraw
from a potential shot
at getting to the quarterfinal?
It is symbolic he's playing
one of the biggest matches of his career
against the greatest player of all time,
where expectations
should be at an all-time low,
and he couldn't even take the court.
[Kevin] I remember looking in his eyes.
That was not a tennis player.
This wasn't performance anxiety.
This wasn't, you know, composure.
Like, this was something
that was, you know,
wrong.
[Mardy] My life at that time,
it was a living hell.
I was in so much pain mentally.
All I wanna do
is just curl up in a dark room
and, like, just not see the world.
I sat in my house for
for months, um, without leaving.
[Tom] He was having
full-blown panic attacks,
and he couldn't get out of bed, basically.
I mean, he was just so far gone.
It was scary how bad he was.
You know
You know, "What's happening here?"
You know?
Forget the tennis.
Can this kid get better?
Can Can he lead the rest of his life?
[Stacey] It was heartbreaking
to see this side of Mardy
that I had never seen before,
and we just didn't know
would he ever be back to his normal self.
It was, like,
a scary possibility and question.
His family were asking me,
"Is this gonna be all right?"
And I'd be like, "Yes,"
and I'd close the door,
and I'd be like, "Shit!"
We didn't know
if we had to put him in the hospital.
So I just said I'd go out there
and see what I can do.
I mean, he couldn't talk.
So we played catch
'cause that was something he did as a kid.
Gave him comfort.
And we were, you know,
really worried about him at that stage.
[somber music playing]
[Mardy] I would start thinking
the worst of things
and needed professional help.
Eventually,
we found, actually, um,
a child psychologist.
The first time I saw him,
he told me,"You have a case
of severe anxiety disorder."
"Incredibly severe."
I started by seeing him every day,
seven days a week.
He prescribed me some medication,
we did some meditation,
and talked me through how to change
the narrative of my thought process
when it went into bad places.
[Christian] It turned out the racing
heart rate was the symptom of his anxiety.
Once he got anxious enough,
then his heart would beat too quickly
in that one area.
That'd make him a little bit nervous,
and then it'd go up a bit more.
It'd self-fulfill itself.
[Mardy] How can I take
what I've learned in tennis,
in the mental side of the game,
see if that gives me a leg up?
And it turns out
a lot of things I thought were similar
were maybe almost the opposite.
Talking about what I was dealing with
made me feel better.
Talking about it to the doctors,
to my wife, family, friends
eventually helped me.
And so, ironically,
showing weakness and showing fear
and and letting people in
was a huge, uh
a huge part of my comeback.
[inaudible]
When I retired, I was a shadow
of what the best version of myself was
on the tennis court.
When Mardy left,
he was arguably
the best version of himself.
That has to be torture.
But I think I probably was
the best version of myself as a friend,
um, once I wasn't playing anymore.
I'm not much of a phone talker.
But with Mardy, we'd call each other
every other week and talk for 20 minutes.
I always like to throw
a little kind of bait.
You know, "God, man, you could
you could still play."
"You could
you could probably still do it."
He didn't want to. "I don't wanna play.
I'm not even close to it,"
and that was the conversation
for a couple of years.
Then it changed a bit.
[Mardy] Andy was already retired,
but he said, "Wouldn't it be cool
if we could play doubles one more time?"
I was like,
"That'd be cool. Let's do that."
So we ended up playing doubles in Atlanta.
[Andy] "If you do this, I'll show up too."
"You make an ass of yourself,
hey, I'll do it with you."
[laughs] "Let's let's let's
let's jump in the deep end together."
In a couple of weeks,
you'll get back on the court.
-[laughs] Yeah.
-With Mardy Fish.
-Yeah. Mardy is
-Childhood friend, as you say.
Childhood friend. Was a great--
Still is a great tennis player.
Um, we never got that chance
to play one last time.
He's gonna try
to make a go of it this summer,
and I'm just so proud
that he's trying to get back.
[Andy] You know, it was
a complex relationship for a long time.
It was competitive,
and there was ego, and
I was probably worse about that
than he was, frankly, but, um, you know
He, uh, has been nice enough
to kinda get me back out here,
and, um, it's been a goal of ours
to try to play one more time together.
[Andy] It was It was so much fun.
We had a blast.
It was like a tennis version
of having a beer together. [chuckles]
[Mardy] I remember saying,
"This is pretty damn cool."
We went through
life's experiences together.
We played each other
when we were 12.
[Andy] Us coming from training
at that apartment complex
and my dad waking us up
at ridiculous hours.
[Mardy] At one point,
we were both top ten in the world.
Ultimately, the number one player
at our profession in our country.
[Mardy] And we won a round,
which was, um
which was an upset of the of the century.
Thankfully, when we lost,
I was done all over again.
But he went on to, uh,
have a pretty cool summer in 2015.
[man] This tape is about mental toughness.
Deep down, it really ate at me
that I could never get back
to the US Open.
[man] Follow the steps
[Mardy] It wasn't about winning.
I didn't really care about that part.
I had a different purpose.
Going back and conquering the demons
that took everything away from me
and changed my life forever.
But I still hadn't come out
about my issues with mental health.
So I thought it was a perfect time
to sorta tell my story.
There was kind of a family discussion
whether he should come out with it.
Everybody wasn't sure
about how it would impact his
like, his career.
There was some debate
as to whether or not he should do it.
Mardy wanted to do it. I thought
it would be good for him to do it.
Some other people
had discouraged him from doing it.
You're
exposing your weakness,
and a weakness isn't
Not good for an athlete.
Look, I love sports.
Um, I've loved sports my whole life.
When I was going through
this whole process,
I didn't really have
a success story I could find
where a world-class athlete
had mental health issues
and then came back,
and came back at the highest level.
So I wrote a story to be released
the first day of the US Open.
[emotional music playing]
I had trouble with anxiety disorder, um
for the past three years,
so that's why I haven't been back.
And, um, when you can't control it,
it's, uh
it's pretty tough.
[Marty] I really wanted people
to understand
beating the stigma of, "Hey, suck it up,"
um, is really important
because it's not as easy as that.
There's absolutely no telling
if two months down the road,
or or maybe even less,
if I didn't get help,
if I didn't get the medication,
if I didn't have someone there
with me all the time,
I have no idea if I'd still be here.
[Mardy] It helps me personally
to be open and talk about it.
I've spoken to some players privately,
and maybe they're just not comfortable,
you know, right here with cameras on 'em
talking about it,
but now I've gotten to the point where
I wanna share my story so I can help.
[reporter] Thanks a lot, Mardy.
[applause]
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Mardy Fish!
-[fan] Mardy!
-[crowd cheering]
[Tom] When Mardy came out with his story
and we read it ourselves,
I was so proud of him.
[crowd cheering]
[host] What will his legacy be?
For a long time, people knew Mardy Fish,
but he was always obscured a bit
by Andy Roddick.
Honestly, I think
his being so open about mental health,
which is always
a bit of a taboo in sports,
I think that's a defining point
for Mardy Fish.
He got a lot of thanks from other players.
Current players, former players
-[inaudible]
-they were all very appreciative
that he had the courage to come out
and talk about his issues the way he did.
And to be able to
[voice breaking] help him do that, uh
it meant a lot.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
Mardy Fish!
Let's hear it for him, New York!
[cheering and applause]
Say, "Bye-bye, tennis!"
Bye-bye, tennis!
Bye-bye, tennis!
Bye-bye, tennis!
The United States has been playing
Davis Cup for 120 years.
They have won 32 titles.
They have just named their 41st captain.
Mardy Fish is the new captain of Team USA.
["Same" by Trey Gruber plays]
[Mardy] The head of the USTA
called me and said,
"Well, uh, we've decided to offer you
the position of Davis Cup captain."
And, uh, I mean,
I'll never forget those words.
I was instructed not to tell anyone.
He called me up, and he said,
"You are now talking
to the new US Davis Cup captain."
-[Sally] Oh boy.
-Just like, "Wow!"
He called and just said,
"You have to refer to me as Captain
from now on." [laughs]
I was like, "You know what, Mardy?
You can still eat shit
because, you know,
you're still Mardy Fish."
[Christian] Mardy called and said
he wanted to get the old band
back together
and see if we could do it one more time,
and I said, "Absolutely."
[Mardy] Davis Cup is
our major team competition.
It's like the World Cup of soccer.
The captain picks the team
and runs the team,
and it's the perfect way for me
to help the future of American tennis.
[Tom] With Mardy as the 41st captain,
I think it's a great statement
not just for Mardy,
but for maybe mental health issues
in American tennis.
[Kevin] In a lot of ways,
I think Mardy's mental toughness,
it's even more impressive.
His ability to process things,
then communicate them
and not being afraid
to confront his demons
is gonna be a really important part
of why he's gonna be a good coach
and a great captain.
[Andy] I think he'll be best at the job,
and he should have the job.
But battling through to where
you don't care about the judgment anymore
is the part I'm most proud of.
I'm glad Mardy got to the point
where he could decide
the risk was worth the reward.
[Mardy] Look, I will always
deal with some sort of mental health.
I used to say to my doctors, "I can't wait
for this to go away and be behind me."
He's like, "I hate to tell you, but this
is always gonna be part of your life."
And still, you know,
six, seven, eight years past, um
uh, it's still, um
still is a daily battle,
but I win every day.
["Same" by Trey Gruber playing]
[music slowing down]
[music distorts]
[music stops]
Achieving mental toughness
is no easy task,
but if you follow the steps
outlined on this tape,
you'll get real results.
Number one, 100% fighting effort.
That means no whining,
no complaining, no escape routes.
[Mardy] I'm a couple hours away
from the biggest match of my career.
The biggest match of my life.
I was just curled up in a ball,
trying desperately to figure out a way
to just stop having these thoughts.
[man] One hundred percent fighting effort
And I'm about to play
the greatest player of all time
to get into the quarterfinals
of the US Open.
[man] That means no whining,
no complaining, no escape routes.
[Mardy] This match, I had physically
and mentally and emotionally trained
for my entire life.
And now, in the car ride
to Arthur Ashe Stadium,
my mind is a million places.
All of a sudden, just boom!
[atmospheric music plays]
The thoughts just came flooding in,
more and more and more.
[echoing] Just nonstop thoughts.
And my heart is just racing.
Big, deep breaths.
[deep breaths]
[man] No complaining. No escape routes.
[Mardy]
I'm Googling "what is anxiety disorder,"
"panic disorder," "mental health."
I'm listening to talks on YouTube
of how to deal with it, how to beat it,
thinking,
"How am I gonna get through this?"
[deep breathing]
I mean, just basically,
I'm I'm desperate.
I didn't know what to do.
[unsettling music builds]
[silence]
["Your Sweet Love" by Lee Hazlewood plays]
Stranger's arms
Reach out to me
'Cause they know
I'm so lonely
Then my mind
Goes back to you
And your sweet love
Sees me through
[deep breaths]
[newsman] Tennis in this country
seems to be on the decline.
Now some people are trying
to do something about that.
[newswoman]
The United States Tennis Association
is setting up a nationwide program
to develop and support talented players
through regional tennis centers.
We're developing
a national training center
where we would take
our top young players,
give them a scholarship,
and we will have some more champions.
This is our map, which shows
all of the area training centers
that we have around the United States.
We're gonna take the best thousand kids,
and the other 500 of you, you are out.
Now we are gonna leave 200.
The rest of you are out.
Now we have ten, and out of these ten,
we must develop a champion.
[tense string music playing]
Everything about American sports
is the best
and about immediate gratification,
and, you know, tennis was no different.
At that point, American tennis
was sort of on the back nine.
[newswoman] Tennis officials say
America's best are getting older.
[newsman] And many around men's tennis
are worried about its future.
[Kevin] So, enter the USTA,
who really felt the pressure
and invested tremendous resources
building the next top American.
[newsman] There are endless demands
from corporate sponsors,
the media, and fans
for the new hope of US tennis.
So, even at the academy level,
having an American player
who potentially could play
at the next level was a commodity.
But let's just be frank.
When I first watched Mardy,
there was nothing that you would say,
"This guy's a prodigy.
This guy's gonna be world class."
There was the part that was flat-footed.
There was the part that you'd go,
"That forehand's pretty terrible."
But man, his mind intrigued me.
Mardy would pull you wide.
The short ball would come.
He'd snap this cross-court angle,
and you'd be like, "Wow, shit. That's
That's a big shot."
So I went to the USTA and said,
"I want Mardy at Saddlebrook."
[gentle music playing]
[Sally] Saddlebrook was
a big turning point.
A lot of tears.
I went to orientation there
and cried all the way home,
uh, when we left him.
We enjoyed having him around the house.
All of a sudden, you know, he's gone.
[Sally] And I never imagined him
leaving at 15.
[Mardy] I lived in a small town.
Vero Beach, Florida.
So I remember
the first time that I moved in
was a real eye-opening experience.
Real pros were there.
Jim Courier trained there.
Pete Sampras trained there at the time.
And I got to watch them train
and really feel like a tennis player.
[Kevin] Here at Saddlebrook,
we're experts at developing
some of the best players in the world.
Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis,
Andy Roddick, Jennifer Capriati.
The US tennis elite.
We really believe mental toughness
is one of the biggest defining things
about them as as competitors.
[man] Within the player
development program,
we'll really work on developing
their physical skills,
their emotional skills,
their mental skills,
so that they can become
a successful professional
and do well in Grand Slams and Davis Cup.
[Kevin] So we had to instill
that mental discipline early on.
It was something that was
never gonna be instinctual with a child.
[Mardy] You'd get up in the morning.
There are times
when you'd hit even before school.
I don't know how hard the school was,
but we played a lot of tennis.
[Kevin] We really believe
in practice makes permanent,
and you have to practice perfectly.
[Mardy] And then we'd work out in the gym.
Go to school for a few hours.
You're back on the tennis courts
by one o'clock.
Boom. Groundhog Day the next day.
And then twice a week,
we'd go into a conference room,
and we'd watch a mental toughness video
of Jim Courier and Pete Sampras.
[man] Achieving mental toughness
is no easy task.
But if you follow the steps
outlined on this tape,
you'll get real results.
I learned at that age the philosophy of,
"Put your head down."
"You go about your business
and not show them any weakness at all."
That means no whining, no complaining,
no escape routes.
[man 2] Can you create a champion?
Mold them into the next Tiger Woods
or Michael Jordan?
[newsman] At the Saddlebrook Resort
in Florida,
a group of promising kids
live and train away from home.
[newswoman] But only a handful
will make it as professionals.
It is simply and brutally
the survival of the physically strongest
and the mentally toughest.
[keyboard clacking]
It was pretty jaw-dropping to see
how tough a lot of these players were.
But Andy Roddick
This kid was different.
[grunts]
His competitiveness was different
than any of the kids that you played.
Andy had this fire to him.
Very intense, ruthless on the court,
to the point
where I would give in a little bit.
He wanted to win almost too bad.
[Andy] A win, I've got a prediction.
[boy 2] What is it?
I'll win today.
That is one of, if not the main reasons
why he had his hall of fame career.
[interviewer] Andy, what would you like
to achieve in tennis?
Just to be the best player
I can work to be.
[interviewer] Who'd you like to be like?
Andre Agassi? Pete Sampras?
[Andy] Probably Pete Sampras
and Andre Agassi.
When Andy ended up at the academy,
there was a buzz about this kid.
He was really
something extraordinarily different.
People would go by on the tennis court,
and everybody would stop
and watch Andy serve.
I was practicing with Mardy one day,
and I was pissed off in practice.
I walked up,
did a little half-motion off of two feet.
I just hit it as hard as I could,
um, and it went in,
and then I just did that
for the next 15 years.
[Kevin] When Andy and Mardy
left the academy,
Andy was on a track
to be a world-class player.
[inaudible]
So Mardy was really meant
to serve Andy's needs.
The Roddicks knew that Andy
needed peers to practice with.
They also knew
that it was important for Andy
to have friends and to enjoy it,
and Mardy fit that bill.
[camera clicks]
He was the guy that could
keep up with him, could have fun with him,
but, um, ultimately, you know,
was that kid to practice with.
[wind chimes tinkling]
[Mardy] When I left, I was 16 years old,
and the Roddicks were nice enough
to say, "You can live with us."
Didn't know them personally at the time,
but I moved in,
and I had a bedroom across the hall.
I think he was a bit more
of a laid-back beach kid,
and then he comes into our house,
and he's going, "What is going on?"
But my dad said,"Hey, listen.
You can stay here. It's a choice."
"But if you are here,
then I think we operate a certain way."
My dad was a tough man,
and I say that in a great way.
You know, army guy. There was no BS.
His father would wake me up
at, like, five o'clock in the morning
and go, "Mardy, it's time to stretch."
And I'm like,
"It's five o'clock, Mr. Roddick."
"I can't do it. I'm too tired."
"Get up. It's time to stretch."
It was such an intense level
of training and competitiveness.
Now my competition was across the hallway.
If he was playing better,
it was in my face at dinner.
[Mardy] We competed at everything,
whether it was a video game,
basketball,
girls.
We weren't best friends. We were brothers.
So we could yell at each other,
almost come to fistfights,
and the next day,
it would be super fun good times.
It was great for me
to have talent like Mardy close.
I think ultimately
it was good for the both of us.
[Mardy] The Roddicks took me
from a top player in the country
to a top player in the world.
[presenter] Second in the nation
is not too shabby.
Mardy Fish.
[cheering and applause]
[Kevin] When Andy and Mardy turned pro,
the expectation for an American
to be good early was
it was important.
The US tennis fan
was so spoiled for so many years.
Sampras, Agassi, Courier,
Connors, McEnroe.
I mean, you went through decades
of American dominance in tennis.
[cameras clicking]
[Andy] Growing up, I caught the tail-end
of the Connors and McEnroe generation.
I was at the '91 US Open.
I remember sneaking into the stadium.
The atmosphere was insane to me.
[cameras clicking]
Connors was going nuts
and just being a rock star.
[crowd cheering]
That night had such a huge impact on me.
It changed my life and my aspirations.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Wow!
[Mardy] The American tennis
that came before Roddick and I
was an era that we'll never see again.
[cheering]
I grew up watching these guys
my whole life.
[crowd cheering]
Americans competing
Slam after Slam for titles.
[crowd cheering]
We were in the golden age.
[crowd cheering]
I saw Chang win in '89.
[grunts]
I was glued to the TV
when Andre won his first Slam.
[crowd cheering]
For my ninth birthday, my mom took me
to see Pete win the '90 US Open.
[cheering and applause]
Jim Courier won four Slams in '91-'92.
[laughs]
So you had
this very special era of tennis,
a 20-year history of having
the best players in the world.
Now you had Andy, Mardy.
That was what they were expected
to be and to do.
[Andy] Then all of a sudden, at 17, 18,
this legendary generation
was really pushing me and Mardy.
on Pete Sampras's jet.
[Mardy] There was this huge push
coming from the great champions
for us to carry this legacy.
[man] Jesus Christ!
What the hell is going on?
[Mardy] Meanwhile, my buddies
are seniors in high school.
[man] Got you, man!
[Mardy] So it was
a really interesting way to grow up.
[Andy] We certainly felt
that responsibility.
Over there and snap it.
[Andy] We knew the history of it.
We were there. We got to see it all.
[announcer] Please welcome
the captain of the US Davis Cup team,
John McEnroe!
[crowd cheering]
[announcer] Andre Agassi!
[crowd cheering]
Pete Sampras!
[crowd cheering]
[crowd cheering]
[cheering and applause]
[silence]
[Mardy] 2003, I end up making
my first final in Cincinnati,
which is a big Masters Series event
right before the US Open.
Big points, big prize money on the line.
There's tens of thousands of people
watching in the stands and on TV.
Just turned 21 years old.
This match could change my life forever.
And I played Andy.
[theme music plays]
[host] Until now, comparisons
to the great American champions
of the past two decades have fallen short.
But Andy Roddick versus Mardy Fish
in an all-American final next,
live on ESPN2.
[crowd cheering]
[Andy] Four years ago, we were playing
at our coach's apartment complex.
Now we're playing for a lot of prestige
at this huge tournament in Cincinnati,
which we had grown up watching.
[commentator] Mardy Fish spent
about a year in the Roddick house
down there in South Florida.
You know, we've dreamt
about playing each other, um,
you know, in a big tournament like this,
uh, ever since we lived with each other.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Mardy has watched
Andy Roddick's rise,
and he said yesterday,
"I always thought it was a matter of time
before I hopefully will do the same."
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] Mardy Fish has come out
and has proven
that he can match Andy Roddick.
He's not intimidated by Roddick at all.
Andy knew my game
better than any player did,
and I knew Andy's game
better than any player did.
And so I used it to my advantage.
-[crowd cheers]
-[commentator] Wow, wow, wow!
There's no mistake on that one.
[commentator 2] Against all odds,
Mardy Fish has won the first set
of this championship match
at the Masters Series.
[Mardy] Just one of those matches
with two heavyweights
going back and forth.
[crowd exclaiming]
[commentator] Oh!
Andy Roddick wins the second set. [laughs]
What a match!
He was so competitive.
It was so mentally tough.
[yells]
[Mardy] But I wasn't gonna give in.
-[crowd cheers]
-[commentator] Match point for Mardy Fish.
All of a sudden, I have match point.
I'm like, "Oh shit, I have match point."
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Biggest moment
of Mardy Fish's life.
[Mardy] He's serving.
He's got the fastest serve of all time.
I wonder what he's gonna do.
Late in the third set,
it was a chess match.
Mardy knew I wanted
to get to his forehand side
because I've hit that serve against him
a thousand times.
I'm going, "He's gonna sell out forehand.
I know he is."
He knows that my forehand's worse,
so he's probably gonna serve
to my forehand.
But he knows I know that,
so he's probably gonna go to my backhand.
No, he's definitely
not gonna go to my backhand.
Wait a minute.
He must know that I know that.
-[Mardy] Oh!
-[commentator] Are you kidding?
Not a lot of speed, 86 miles an hour.
Right in the wheelhouse of Mardy Fish.
Shit. I knew he went
kick serve to my backhand.
That would've been
the number one play for me.
But I was lucky enough
to get another match point.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] This is the time
for intense concentration
and not let your head get involved.
[Mardy] He's bouncing the ball,
and I'm like, "This is your chance."
"He's definitely not gonna go
to my backhand again,
so he's gotta go bomb serve
to my forehand."
"But wait, he knows that I know
that he knew what I knew"
"my backhand. No, he's definitely
not gonna go to my backhand."
"He's probably gonna serve"
[hits ball]
No fucking way.
Kick serve out wide, again.
[commentator] Oh! [chuckles]
[crowd cheering]
[inaudible]
[Mardy] And I overthought it,
and I missed it.
[Andy] I remember him giving me
a little look after I hit it, like,
"We might be the only people
that realize the significance
of what you tried to pull there."
[Mardy] I end up losing the match
seven-six in the third.
My first massive heartbreak kind of loss.
[crowd cheering]
And it still hurts.
[crowd cheering]
First and foremost,
I'd like to congratulate Mardy.
I mean, it's hard to try to kick
someone's ass who you like so much.
[crowd laughing and cheering]
[Kevin] That to me
was that match, defining.
Andy was now the next top American player.
And then [whoosh]
you know, became
number one player in the world.
[commentator] Talking about the US Open,
a year ago,
we're talking about Andy Roddick,
but now we're talking about him
being seeded, Patrick,
or winning the whole thing.
How things have changed for Andy Roddick.
I took the responsibility and the weight,
the expectation seriously.
I was fine-tuned, I was prepared,
I was practiced.
[crowd cheering]
Purely from a, you know,
little kid dreaming, growing up,
there'd be something very special
about getting to play at the US Open.
You work towards it
and react one way or the other.
You freeze up or you go get it,
and that day, I got it.
[commentator] Roddick, one serve away.
[announcer] Game, set, match.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] I don't believe it.
[crowd cheering]
Before that, I was a tennis player.
After, it was different, more than tennis.
[inaudible]
[inaudible]
[applause]
I can't even begin to tell you
how excited I am to host SNL.
[fans cheering]
-[woman] Andy!
-Andy, sign your name here!
No more "What's it feel like
to be the future of American tennis" crap.
[laughter]
No more.
Andy's success is amazing and awesome.
This guy's your friend and your brother,
and you've been rooting for him
your whole life.
[Andy speaking indistinctly]
[crowd exclaims and laughs]
[Andy] You're such an ass!
Oh! [laughs]
-Yeah, so what was the question?
-[laughter]
There wasn't a jealousy towards it,
but there was a,
"Man, I wish I could have done that."
[Kevin] Andy's US Open win
[applause]
it was amazing.
We finally have an American on track
to win multiple Grand Slam titles.
[applause]
[producer] So why did the bubble burst
for American tennis?
I think the bubble
was named Federer, you know?
[tense music plays]
He figured out a way to win every time.
Every single time.
[gentle music playing]
[Andy] Roger's the best defensive
and best offensive player in the world
at the same time.
How do you How do you attack that?
Roger had this aura
of invincibility about him
where you just could never breathe,
'cause he could turn it like that.
Boom. Point's over.
-[yells]
-[camera clicks]
He's the most-liked athlete,
universally, in the world.
[applause]
You speak 17 languages,
and your hair looks amazing,
and it's fantastic, and you don't sweat.
[grunts]
[grunts]
[Andy] I'm not jealous of his success.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator speaking Italian]
[Andy] I'm jealous of the ease
at which he's able to navigate
being the greatest of all time.
[Mardy] We played
in the final of 2004 in Halle.
Roger went up 6-0, 3-0
in, like, 25 minutes.
-[applause]
-I'm like, "Unbelievable."
"This guy's gonna beat me 6-0, 6-0
in the finals of a tournament."
I think he probably felt bad
for all of the people
that had paid money to come watch,
and I'm still, to this day, convinced
that he prolonged the match
a little bit longer so it was 6-0, 6-3.
He made it, like, an hour.
-[announcer speaking indistinctly]
-[cheering and applause]
[Mardy] And then,
when it couldn't get any worse,
in 2005,
a guy named Nadal came around.
[commentator] Amazing!
[cheers]
[Mardy] And then 2007,
a guy named Novak Djokovic.
[commentator] Oh my goodness!
Are you kidding me?
[Mardy] And I'm like, "Whoa."
"The top three greatest players
of all time in the exact same generation."
[Andy] It became this gargantuan effort,
trying to beat the guys that had become
the Mount Rushmore of the game.
[Andy] And all the while
taking criticisms.
[dramatic music playing]
But my dad instilled that army mentality
where if you take it on the chin,
you get up, and you do it again.
I had to get up a lot.
[crowd cheering]
King of the world.
[man] I'm the king of the world!
["Stay in Line" by Trey Gruber plays]
[Mardy] Looking back,
this point in my career,
I was in a really good place
emotionally and mentally.
I felt like I was so lucky
to play professional tennis.
Just an absolute dream.
- Oh, stay in line
-[inaudible]
Oh, stay in line
[Mardy] I went to Asia.
I went to Singapore.
I went to Belgium.
I went to, you know, France, uh
All over. You know, all over the
All over the world.
Reckon what you need, you'll find
[Mardy] I loved hanging out with friends
and be able to eat what I wanted
and drink what I wanted.
[laughs]
I think we're gonna go
check out the local nightlife,
so we'll see you guys tomorrow.
[laughs]
It was during this time I met my wife,
who I call an angel.
He was never the cocky kind of athlete.
He wasn't boastful.
He was, like, a fun, goofy guy.
Melted my heart, actually.
It was a very happy time for everybody.
Watching Mardy with my love for the game,
it was fun.
[laughing] Really fun.
I was as amazed as anybody was.
He's just a normal guy.
You used to say,
"What's Mardy doing out there"
-What's Mardy doing out there?
-"on a stadium court?"
-[crowd cheering]
- Lately I've been a stranger
[commentator] Open court. Roddick's in.
And there it is.
[crowd cheering]
[interviewer] What are your goals
for the rest of the year?
I think the ultimate goal
is to maybe beat Andy.
-[laughs]
-[crowd laughs and cheers]
[interviewer] Oh, that's too good.
[Mardy] Honestly,
just sort of a normal career,
and I didn't have success.
[commentator] Mardy's the guy
a lot of people have been waiting for him
to break through.
[Jim] He's been out playing now
for a couple of years
It's been a big struggle for him
and try and be up there
near where Andy Roddick is.
People that are considered
the greatest of all time,
they have this thing,
"We'll rip your head off."
"We'll tear you apart.
We'll stomp on you on our way to victory."
The freaking ball was right on the line!
At that point in his career, I don't know
that Mardy was prepared to do that.
It wasn't because I didn't want it.
I legitimately didn't understand it.
I didn't get it.
[Andy] I can normally tell at 17 or 18
whether a kid gets it.
It doesn't ever correct itself.
Never corrects itself.
Mardy's one of the only guys
I've ever seen
who figured it out and corrected it.
[loud droning]
[tense music playing]
[Mardy] So, 2009,
I got a hyperbaric chamber,
which pumps oxygen into your body
and makes things heal faster,
and I basically slept in there,
would take naps in there,
just be in it nonstop.
And I legitimately had this "Aha"
look-in-the-mirror moment where I'm like,
"I'm 28 years old,
at the back end of my career,
and I'm not gonna get
everything out of my career
that I could've and should've."
I desperately wanted to make sure
that when I was done playing,
I can put my head on my pillow every night
knowing that I tried
everything I could possibly do.
So I said to myself,
"Let's do this.
Let's really fucking do this."
[Christian] I worked for the USTA
for a little over ten years.
I remember getting that call from Mardy.
He wanted to find out
if he really dedicated himself 100%
the way Andy did,
if he would be as successful.
And that's when he convinced me
to move out to LA,
live with him and Stacey,
and see if we could make him better.
[Stacey] He sat down with myself
and his trainer, Christian, and said
he had so much more
that he wanted to accomplish.
[Mardy] I told Christian
the ultimate goal of mine
is getting to London,
making the World Tour Final.
[Christian] The year-end finals
are thecrme de la crme.
Only the eight best players in the world
get invited to the year-end finals.
So my goal was to get Mardy
as fit as possible.
And first was diet, to lose the weight.
I was 203 pounds.
So I set out to lose 12 pounds.
I cut out alcohol, pizza, desserts, fries.
I was starving every day.
[Christian] So next we started to train
as hard as we could
all day, every day.
[Mardy] When I got back on the court,
I told my coach, "Give me a racket."
"Put one ball on this side,
the next ball on the other side,
the next ball on that side, and let's
just do that for hours and hours."
If you want to beat
Roger and Rafa and Novak,
you gotta have the leg strength
of a football player,
the lungs of a marathon runner,
and on top of that,
an unbelievable level of focus.
So we would do dynamic warm-up exercises,
movement drills, medicine ball throws,
side-to-side, cross-training, suicides.
[Mardy] Now I'm getting fit.
I'm not getting tired.
I can train for hours.
I can run forever,
and it becomes like a religion,
like a lifestyle.
"I'm gonna play two sets with you,
two sets with you."
"In the afternoon, I'll play two sets
with you. We'll do it again and again."
Ice everything down,
and do it all over again the next day.
It was extreme, for better or worse,
but it was like that with everything.
Going to bed at 7:30
and never seeing friends anymore.
[dog whimpers]
It didn't leave much time
for anything else.
[Mardy] From that point on,
every single decision that I made
had to do with my career.
I was obsessed.
It was never-ending.
I could never be too fit.
[Mardy] All of a sudden,
two and a half months go by,
I jump on the scale, and I weighed myself.
172. I'd lost 31 pounds.
So he really
He turned himself into an absolute beast.
Now the season starts.
Still, to this day, I don't know
why I came to this conclusion,
but I decided to go to Newport.
["Circuital" by My Morning Jacket playing]
[Mardy] Really small tournament
in this beautiful little town
in New England.
But said to myself
that I had to win this tournament.
"I have to win this tournament."
Got all the way to the quarters,
and I play a buddy of mine,
Frank Dancevic.
[commentator 1] Mardy Fish,
30 pounds lighter.
It was kind of jolting, Jimmy,
to see up close.
[Mardy] And I lose the first set quickly.
[commentator 2] And there it is.
First set to the young Belgian.
[commentator 1]
It's hard to know what Fish is thinking.
[Mardy] "Shit, man,
this guy's gonna beat me."
All of the sacrifice that I had made.
I had changed my life.
[tense droning]
"I have to win this match."
If I didn't do something to stop this guy,
then I don't know.
"Is this gonna happen?
Am I gonna turn my career around?"
So we come to the changeover.
I remember walking up to him,
and out of nowhere
[inaudible]
"There's no way you can fucking beat me.
You can't beat me. No chance."
"I'm gonna fucking beat you.
I'm coming back to win."
"There's no way you can fucking win."
And Frank's like,
"What? What is going on?"
The umpire's like, "Mardy, calm down."
[man] Mardy!
And I couldn't believe it,
but it actually got him out of his rhythm.
[grunting]
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] And Mardy Fish
Finally, Mardy Fish comes roaring back.
Big kicker. Open court. There it is.
-[crowd cheering]
-Mardy Fish.
Unbelievable last point.
Fitness prevailed there,
and, uh, you know,
I've worked really hard.
Christian and I have worked really hard.
[Mardy] I went on to win that tournament.
[man] There he is,
our champion, Mardy Fish.
-Congratulations!
-[crowd cheering]
[Mardy] I did whatever it took to win.
I lost a friendship,
but I had to do it.
Like, this match was the turning point
that changed my life.
Really did. It changed my life.
["Circuital" continues playing]
[commentator]
Terrific shot-making by Fish.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] That's so good.
Match points.
[commentator] And Mardy Fish
winning Newport and Atlanta.
Two tournaments in a row.
Holy shit. Mardy just started winning
back to back to back matches.
[commentator] What a point by Fish!
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Ten matches in a row now
for Mardy Fish.
[Andy] The new Mardy shows up,
and all of a sudden,
he has half of the face
that he used to have.
He was winning the matches every week.
You sit back and you go, "Huh."
["Circuital" by My Morning Jacket
continues playing]
[crowd cheering]
-[commentator 1] Fish got there!
-[commentator 2] Wow!
[Christian] He flipped a switch,
and he would get super aggressive,
super focused,
just super intense.
-[crowd exclaims]
-[commentator] That is world class.
Now I'm just consistently
week in, week out,
making the semis and finals
of tournaments.
Pretty soon it got to the stage of playing
the greatest players of all time.
[commentator] Mardy Fish and Andy Murray
getting ready to play on Center Court.
-[commentator 1] Wow.
-[commentator 2] That's so good!
Mardy Fish beats Andy Murray.
[crowd cheering]
I took that confidence of winning,
and that catapulted me.
[commentator] He's gonna face
one of the all-time greats.
[grunts]
[grunts]
-[commentator] Wow.
-[crowd cheering]
Rafael Nadal struggling
not with the heat, but with Mardy Fish.
Oh, do you like that?
Fish continuing to punish Nadal.
And that brings Mardy triple match point.
Yes!
Mardy Fish has defeated Rafael Nadal
for the first time in his career.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] What a great effort.
He got a standing ovation.
Everybody's so happy for Mardy Fish.
[crowd cheering]
[Mardy] Now I'm top 20 in the world.
If I could win just a couple of matches,
I'd legitimately have a chance
of making the World Tour Final.
[interviewer] What would it mean
to qualify for London?
A lot. There are about 100 guys
at the start of the year
that have ambitions
of being in London at the end of the year,
and I hear everything that has to do
with the World Tour Finals is amazing,
and I'd love to
love to experience it for myself.
[Mardy] But then I played Andy.
And I'd lost to Andy nine times in a row.
[commentator 1] And what a match
we have tonight
with Andy Roddick against Mardy Fish,
his good buddy.
[commentator 2]Mardy Fish, he's lost
nine times in a row to Andy Roddick.
[Andy] When we played
against each other,
I wanted to make it physical,
I wanted to make it gross.
I wanted to drag him
into the gutter with me.
[crowd cheers]
He never was prepared to do that.
[commentator] I just think Roddick
still mentally a little bit tougher.
[Mardy] I had lost to him so much
because he was so mentally tough,
and he would always out-physical me.
But now I had this new body
that could kinda outwork him.
[Andy] All of a sudden, he's inviting
to get into 10, 15, 20-ball rallies.
He was willing to get dirty at that point.
["Circuital" continues playing]
[commentator]
Oh, how do you explain that one?
[crowd cheers]
[commentator] And that brings Mardy
to triple match point.
[crowd cheers]
[commentator 1]
Mardy Fish beats Andy Roddick.
[commentator 2] Nobody beats Mardy Fish
ten times in a row.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator]
Mardy got here off the court.
Congratulations. Skipping
those french fries was worth it, right?
It definitely was.
This is one of the best wins
I've had, obviously, by far.
[crowd cheering]
Mardy did what Andy always feared
Mardy could do,
and then it happened,
then it happened twice.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Victorious.
Just the second time.
[Andy] At that point, I'm going,
"Maybe I'm not the better player anymore."
Maybe ten years later
than we both expected,
but I'm sure he felt
he was going to his rightful place
to become the top American.
[Dr. Phil] For those who may not be
tennis fans, this is Mardy Fish.
He is the number-one-ranked
US tennis player in America.
[cheers and applause]
[host] You're gonna be 30 years old.
For now, the number one American player.
What took you so long?
[laughs]
"Holy shit.I'm the number one player
in this whole country."
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
-[man] Mardy!
-[crowd] Fish!
See, I knew it.
He really could be one of the best.
And then he got to seven in the world,
and I was like, "Oh my gosh."
Yes! Pow, that's our Mardy.
[crowd cheering]
[yells]
[Mardy] My ranking went way up.
I finished the year at a career high,
seven in the world.
And so I told my trainer,
and I told my wife,
"Pack up. London is calling."
When I qualified,
I got a call from Jim Courier,
who was number one in the world
and won four majors.
He was our Davis Cup captain.
He said, "What are you doing?"
I said, "Nothing. I'm in the bathroom."
Like, you know, whatever.
I didn't I didn't bring it up.
And he goes,
"Take a look in the mirror."
"That's a guy that's
top ten in the world."
And I went, "Damn right."
[applause]
[announcer] Mardy Fish!
[cheering and applause]
[emotional music playing]
It's an incredibly special event.
Just incredible tennis players.
Federer. Nadal.
Djokovic. Murray.
Fish.
Does that fit, you know?
Does that really fit?
And for some reason, it just
it felt right.
There's a reason why, uh,
all of us are here.
Uh, we've had great results
throughout the year,
and I'm actually the only non-European
that's, uh that's here.
[crowd cheering]
[Christian] It was validation.
It was relief. It was exuberance.
It was everything
that we'd been working towards.
You don't expect your child
to be doing these crazy things.
There's Mardy out there.
He's in the club.
[Mardy] I lost a close battle to the king,
Roger Federer.
But I didn't care, man. I really didn't.
The memories
of being one of those eight guys,
one of the most special moments
of my life.
[camera clicking]
Those were the moments where I could
look back and say it was all worth it.
[interviewer] What are the main things
you'll take out of this year?
That it's possible to be here, playing,
knowing that I can make it.
It just gives you confidence
you can do it again.
And so, I hope that when I turn 30,
it doesn't mean that I'll go backwards.
[helicopter whirring]
[Andy] Being the number one American,
it's an amazing thing.
It's a dream come true.
But there's a lot of pressure around it.
The higher the stakes,the harder it gets,
the more responsibility.
You become so invested
that it hurts when you don't win.
And the psychological part of it
is brutal.
The toughest moments of your life,
you're out there alone
on an island by yourself,
and it's a terrible place to be, you know,
where you can't show it,
but you're feeling these insane emotions.
[deep breath]
[Andy] And the ugly part of it is
that it'll start a young age.
At 12, you're like, "That guy's soft."
You don't want that reputation.
So I have a reputation
that I was pretty tough.
But I just faked it real well.
I was super insecure.
Terrible during Slams to be around.
I have a hard time eating
a certain type of sports bar now
because it makes me nervous,
'cause that's what I associate it with,
and I can't actually swallow it.
[director] We're gonna try
a picture on this. And action!
[clapperboard strikes]
[tense music plays]
-[woman] Cut!
-[director] That's a cut.
[Mardy] 2012, I had some different
opportunities now all of a sudden,
not only to play some tournaments
I'd never played before,
but the the appearance fees
were a lot different.
So we decided to pack my schedule early.
I started the year leaving for Australia
and lost in the first round.
[commentator] A disappointing result
for Mardy Fish.
[Mardy] And then going back to LA
for about six days.
Flying over to Switzerland for Davis Cup.
Back for four days.
Your body's like, "What the hell?
There's supposed to be sleep."
And then all the way back to Marseille.
The loss, first round in Marseille.
[commentator] I don't know
what's going on with Mardy.
Not playing the same level.
[Mardy] Flying over to Dubai.
Dubai, I started taking a ton of Ambien
just to try to get on time zones,
but I lost the second round in Dubai.
[commentator] He's top ten in the world.
Mardy should be winning.
[Mardy] Now the stress
is starting to mount.
Pressure is starting to mount.
[yells indistinctly]
[speaking indistinctly]
[interviewer] What's happening
to US men's tennis?
Obviously,
we're not doing very well right now.
Mardy, it's a great effort
for him to reach the top ten,
but we need to get better athletes,
we need to get hungrier players.
Believe me,
we're wondering the same thing.
All of the hopes and criticisms
of past number-one Americans,
they were all heaped on Mardy.
[reporter 1] Fish in a big hole.
-[reporter 2] Fish struggles
-[reporter 3] Continues to have trouble
[reporter 4]
Very disappointing forMardy Fish.
[interviewer] Ever wonder why
you're in the top ten?
I won a lot of matches last year.
So, um, I didn't just get to eight or nine
in the world by one week.
Mardy wanted to win a Slam
and prove that American tennis was great.
[man] Let's go, Mardy!
[Mardy] I did everything
I could possibly do
to be 100% perfect.
No alcohol.
Stay disciplined.
Make sure you're eating correctly
every day.
It feels like it never ends.
It just feels like it just keeps going.
[Christian ]His mind
would fixate on something.
He He became a different person.
It's almost like something snapped.
I don't know if he spoke to you at all
about the first time in in Miami.
[Mardy] So we get to Miami,
and things were off.
My tennis wasn't necessarily off,
but my mind was off.
[grunts]
[commentator] Another miss from Mardy.
Mardy Fish can't play
much worse than that.
I remember walking off the court.
There was a TV in the locker room.
It was on ESPN with Patrick McEnroe,
my Davis Cup captain.
[inaudible]
And I could hear as I walked in
[Patrick] Mardy Fish, just
There's no other way to say it.
Just a horrendous performance.
I'm like, "Well, first of all,
that's a horrendous take."
And he started
going over and over this in his mind.
[Patrick] horrendous performance
And second of all, why would you say that?
You're my friend.
You're my Davis Cup captain.
We've been through battles together.
Just got bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.
And that's on national TV.
So I heard it, and it hit hard.
It was something that he couldn't control.
Half of it, he's right.
Half of it, I'm like,
"Maybe he's not the only one
saying that type of stuff."
[Patrick] horrendous performance
You know, that all weighed on me big-time.
[rapid heartbeat]
That night, I wake up at 3:00 a.m.,
and my heart is just racing.
-[rapid heartbeat]
-[panting]
"Holy shit, am I having a heart attack?"
"I can't stop this."
"Honest to God, like, I think I'm
I think I'm dying."
-[rapid heartbeat]
-[panting]
So I call Christian.
He doesn't answer the first time.
Call him again. Doesn't answer.
Call him a third time. Just nonstop.
Mardy woke me up.
He was terrified. I was scared as well.
So we had to call the ambulance
and go to the hospital.
[Mardy] They put me on the EKG.
My heart rate was 240 beats per minute.
I've never seen it above 192.
The doctors checked me out, and they said,
"We think we know what it is."
"It's a thing called tachycardia."
There's electricity around your heart.
When those malfunction,
they just fire uncontrolled.
There's a small procedure
that you can do called an ablation.
They put you under for hours and hours.
They go through your groin
and up to your heart.
It was successful.
I had a full checkout.
I was 100% healthy.
They figured out exactly
where the problem was coming from,
and they fixed that problem.
But it turned outthere was
something bigger going on underneath.
[Mardy] After the procedure,
that was the first time that I felt
these uncomfortable thoughts.
I wasn't aware of what they were or why.
I had never been around anyone
with any mental health issue.
I just I didn't know where to go with it.
And no one knew what I was going through,
'cause I had trained myself
to show no weakness.
And that was something
that I was proud of.
But leading up till the US Open,
the thoughts were coming
more and more and more.
Every three days, to every two days,
to every day, to every hour.
But telling other people about it
was showing weakness.
[cameras clicking]
And I didn't know how to handle that.
[cameras clicking]
So I just always kept it inside.
[reflective music playing]
[Andy] The 2012 US Open
is a weird tournament.
For me, it's like, "I can't do
another year of this. It's hard."
"I can't physically prepare again.
I can't mentallyprepare again."
So I I walked away from a career.
All right. Well, thank you all
for, uh for coming. Um
I'll, uh, make this short and sweet. Uh
I've decided that this is gonna be,
uh, my last tournament.
[reporter] You're 30
and 30 is not that old.
Obviously, Federer is 31.
In a sense, you're sort of
retiring early, no?
I didn't wanna make it
through this press conference
without a direct comparison to Roger,
so thank you for that.
[laughter]
Frankly, these guys have gotten
really, really, really good,
and, um, you know, I'm not sure that, um
with compromised health that
that I can do what I wanna do right now.
I look back on that tournament,
I have a little bit of guilt
'cause I'm kind of taking a victory lap,
and I don't know that I knew the depths
of what Mardy was going through.
I don't knowthat I completely understood
what was going on.
[Mardy] Once we got to New York,
my mind had completely consumed me,
all day of every day.
And then Andy retired.
Are you surprised
that he's calling it here at the Open?
Did this catch you off guard at all?
Uh, yeah. I mean, you know, look,
we all have, uh, doubts,
and I never really was able to to realize
exactly how much pressure
he's always been under
at a tournament like this
until last year
when I came in as the top American,
and he's handled that incredibly well
without even telling us,
um, how bad it is.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Possibly the final point
of Andy Roddick's career.
[crowd exclaims]
[announcer] Game, set, match, del Potro.
[cheering and applause]
[man] Andy, it's your moment.
-It's your microphone.
-[chuckles]
Oh, wow.
Since I was a kid, uh,
I've been coming to this tournament,
and I felt lucky just to
to sit where all of you are sitting today
and to watch this game,
and to see the champions
that have come and gone, and, uh
[voice breaking]
I I've loved every minute of it, and, um
[chuckles]
[cheering and applause]
Thank you for everything. I love you,
and thank you, guys. Thank you.
[cheering and applause]
[Mardy] Third round, they scheduled me
for a night match on Arthur Ashe Stadium
when, like, they only scheduled
the big boys for night matches.
And it's not because I'm playing Federer
or Roddick or Nadal.
It was because of me.
That year, people were excited for Mardy.
[reporter] It's been years since
an American won the men's singles title.
Are there any men with a chance
to bring home the title this year?
[reporter 2]Mardy Fish.
He's has been around for a while,
but he's playing great tennis
and ready to win the US Open title.
If you're a fan of American tennis,
root for Mardy Fish.
[both] Mardy Fish.
Yeah, he's the last one standing!
[Kevin] All these trailers that are set up
or all the TV trailers,
the US was watching.
The world was watching.
[commentator] It's night at the US Open.
American players love the nights.
We have seen so much drama
through the years,
-so much electricity in these moments.
-Yeah.
Mardy Fish has worked awfully hard
to get into these moments.
He's seen Andy Roddick, his great friend,
have so many moments like this.
And now he'll turn up the energy.
It's go time here.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome the players.
Mardy Fish and Gilles Simon.
[cheering and applause]
-[fan cheers]
-[fans] Let's go, Mardy! Let's go!
[rhythmic clapping]
[fans] Let's go, Mardy! Let's go!
[rhythmic clapping]
[fan] Go, Mardy!
[grunts]
[crowd exclaims]
[applause]
[crowd exclaims]
[yells] Fuck! Fuck!
It was a really stressful,
emotional roller coaster-type match.
[crowd cheering]
[inaudible]
One of those matches
where you're just on edge.
[crowd] Oh!
[applause]
But again, I'm playing well.
I'm not having
any of these thoughts on the court.
You know, that's my safe haven.
[crowd cheering]
[yells]
[fans] Let's go, Mardy!
[Mardy] That was the first time
I started truly believing
I could win this Grand Slam.
[crowd cheering]
[crowd exclaims, cheers]
[fans] Let's go, Mardy!
[Mardy] I eventually win the third set
in a breaker,
and I sit down at the changeover,
and I calm down just a little bit.
And for some reason,
I glance at the time clock.
[tense droning]
It says 1:15.
"Oh man, it's so late."
"We're only in the fourth set.
This is gonna take forever."
"I'm not gonna get to bed till 4:00 a.m.,
and that's only if I win this set."
And then all of a sudden,
like, out of nowhere,
just boom!
"Oh no."
This is the first time
that this has happened on the court.
Just the whole weight of the stress
came flooding in.
"My body doesn't feel"
"Am I gonna get sick?"
"My health is gonna go"
"Should go to the hospital"
"Heart attack?" "Did I eat too much?"
"Did I eat too little?"
"Did I get enough sleep?"
Just nonstop thoughts.
I can't stop this.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
There's tens of thousands of people
watching in the stands and on TV.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
There was nowhere to go,
and there was no hiding.
[crowd chanting] Mardy! Mardy! Mardy!
[Mardy] I was all of a sudden
[silence]
all alone.
["Five day Morning"
by The Clientele plays]
Mrs. Jones and I
Were dreaming of the moon
[Mardy] My only safe place was now taken.
But deep down, you can't
you can't show it.
[man] Mental toughness
is 100% fighting effort.
No whining, no complaining,
no escape routes.
[Mardy] I have to keep playing.
[cheering and applause]
I remember looking at Christian,
and we both knew something was wrong
and he wasn't himself.
["Five Day Morning" continues playing]
[Mardy] I don't remember anything
of the rest of the match.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
Which is mind-blowing.
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
[applause]
[overlapping indistinct thoughts]
[cheering]
[Mardy] I'm surprised the last few games
went the way they did.
'Cause I was just in another zone,
on another planet.
-[cheering]
-[commentator] Game, set, and match, Fish.
6-1, 5-7, 7-6, 6-3.
[Mardy] Justin Gimelstob was the sideline.
All I remember saying
was, like, "Please hurry."
Please hurry. I'm not feeling well.
[interviewer]
Roger Federer moving forward.
What will you need to do
to be competitive and try and beat him?
Uh, I have no idea right now,
uh, to be honest. Uh
A lot more than I did today. Um
But we'll try to rest as best we can
and see what we can do.
[interviewer]
Mardy, thanks a lot. Well done.
[crowd cheering]
[Christian] To play Roger at the US Open
on Center Court
to get to the quarterfinal,
this is whatthe number-one-ranked
American player does.
Something he kind of had worked
his whole life to get to
and have the opportunity to play.
It's like a tennis player's dream.
[reporter] It's Labor Day
at the US Open,
and here in New York, it's a day
when champions will be hard at work.
Roger Federer against American Mardy Fish,
and we'll return to CBS after this word.
[tense music playing]
[Mardy] I wake up the next day thinking,
"How am I gonna get through this?"
Trying desperately to figure out a way
to just stop having these thoughts.
It kinda just all came out
that he was grappling with thoughts
that were, you know, disturbing him.
And he was scared.
[reporter] And there he is.
World number one Roger Federer
arriving for his match
against American hopeful Mardy Fish.
It was tough for me to sit back and know
that my friend was going through this,
so I shared my difficulties
that I had in my life with him.
And
I remember Christian saying
I had depression, anxiety issues myself,
and how I had taken medication,
and it may be helpful for him.
I just gave him a hug,
reassure him
that everything would be all right.
[Mardy] My wife and I get into the car,
ride to Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The thoughts just start
flooding back again.
[Stacey] I was just scared
for his well-being.
His eyes were filled with tears,
and I remember just reaching over
and holding his hand and saying,
"You don't have to play."
"What do you mean,
'You don't have to play'? I gotta pl--"
"I have to play."
I had physically and mentally
and emotionally trained my whole life
for that moment.
The thought of pulling out
was just unheard of.
I started thinking for a second. I'm like,
"Wait a minute. I don't have to play."
[Sally] We were all sitting,
waiting to go in.
We got a text from Stacey
saying they were coming,
but something was going on,
and then I remembered
Justin Gimelstob saying,
"If Mardy doesn't play this match,
CBS is gonna kill somebody."
And I remember thinking,
"Oh my God," you know.
"What's happened here?"
[reporter] We're getting official word
that RogerFederer-Mardy Fish match
is not gonna happen.
Mardy Fish has withdrawn.
We got to the court and told the USTA
I actually wasn't gonna play this match.
And I just broke down
right there in front of everyone.
Tennis had just been
taken away from me completely,
and, uh, it all
just kinda came out right there.
[sportscaster] Mardy Fish, who was
scheduled to face Roger Federer,
withdrew due to health concerns
How is this all manifesting itself
to the point where he has to withdraw
from a potential shot
at getting to the quarterfinal?
It is symbolic he's playing
one of the biggest matches of his career
against the greatest player of all time,
where expectations
should be at an all-time low,
and he couldn't even take the court.
[Kevin] I remember looking in his eyes.
That was not a tennis player.
This wasn't performance anxiety.
This wasn't, you know, composure.
Like, this was something
that was, you know,
wrong.
[Mardy] My life at that time,
it was a living hell.
I was in so much pain mentally.
All I wanna do
is just curl up in a dark room
and, like, just not see the world.
I sat in my house for
for months, um, without leaving.
[Tom] He was having
full-blown panic attacks,
and he couldn't get out of bed, basically.
I mean, he was just so far gone.
It was scary how bad he was.
You know
You know, "What's happening here?"
You know?
Forget the tennis.
Can this kid get better?
Can Can he lead the rest of his life?
[Stacey] It was heartbreaking
to see this side of Mardy
that I had never seen before,
and we just didn't know
would he ever be back to his normal self.
It was, like,
a scary possibility and question.
His family were asking me,
"Is this gonna be all right?"
And I'd be like, "Yes,"
and I'd close the door,
and I'd be like, "Shit!"
We didn't know
if we had to put him in the hospital.
So I just said I'd go out there
and see what I can do.
I mean, he couldn't talk.
So we played catch
'cause that was something he did as a kid.
Gave him comfort.
And we were, you know,
really worried about him at that stage.
[somber music playing]
[Mardy] I would start thinking
the worst of things
and needed professional help.
Eventually,
we found, actually, um,
a child psychologist.
The first time I saw him,
he told me,"You have a case
of severe anxiety disorder."
"Incredibly severe."
I started by seeing him every day,
seven days a week.
He prescribed me some medication,
we did some meditation,
and talked me through how to change
the narrative of my thought process
when it went into bad places.
[Christian] It turned out the racing
heart rate was the symptom of his anxiety.
Once he got anxious enough,
then his heart would beat too quickly
in that one area.
That'd make him a little bit nervous,
and then it'd go up a bit more.
It'd self-fulfill itself.
[Mardy] How can I take
what I've learned in tennis,
in the mental side of the game,
see if that gives me a leg up?
And it turns out
a lot of things I thought were similar
were maybe almost the opposite.
Talking about what I was dealing with
made me feel better.
Talking about it to the doctors,
to my wife, family, friends
eventually helped me.
And so, ironically,
showing weakness and showing fear
and and letting people in
was a huge, uh
a huge part of my comeback.
[inaudible]
When I retired, I was a shadow
of what the best version of myself was
on the tennis court.
When Mardy left,
he was arguably
the best version of himself.
That has to be torture.
But I think I probably was
the best version of myself as a friend,
um, once I wasn't playing anymore.
I'm not much of a phone talker.
But with Mardy, we'd call each other
every other week and talk for 20 minutes.
I always like to throw
a little kind of bait.
You know, "God, man, you could
you could still play."
"You could
you could probably still do it."
He didn't want to. "I don't wanna play.
I'm not even close to it,"
and that was the conversation
for a couple of years.
Then it changed a bit.
[Mardy] Andy was already retired,
but he said, "Wouldn't it be cool
if we could play doubles one more time?"
I was like,
"That'd be cool. Let's do that."
So we ended up playing doubles in Atlanta.
[Andy] "If you do this, I'll show up too."
"You make an ass of yourself,
hey, I'll do it with you."
[laughs] "Let's let's let's
let's jump in the deep end together."
In a couple of weeks,
you'll get back on the court.
-[laughs] Yeah.
-With Mardy Fish.
-Yeah. Mardy is
-Childhood friend, as you say.
Childhood friend. Was a great--
Still is a great tennis player.
Um, we never got that chance
to play one last time.
He's gonna try
to make a go of it this summer,
and I'm just so proud
that he's trying to get back.
[Andy] You know, it was
a complex relationship for a long time.
It was competitive,
and there was ego, and
I was probably worse about that
than he was, frankly, but, um, you know
He, uh, has been nice enough
to kinda get me back out here,
and, um, it's been a goal of ours
to try to play one more time together.
[Andy] It was It was so much fun.
We had a blast.
It was like a tennis version
of having a beer together. [chuckles]
[Mardy] I remember saying,
"This is pretty damn cool."
We went through
life's experiences together.
We played each other
when we were 12.
[Andy] Us coming from training
at that apartment complex
and my dad waking us up
at ridiculous hours.
[Mardy] At one point,
we were both top ten in the world.
Ultimately, the number one player
at our profession in our country.
[Mardy] And we won a round,
which was, um
which was an upset of the of the century.
Thankfully, when we lost,
I was done all over again.
But he went on to, uh,
have a pretty cool summer in 2015.
[man] This tape is about mental toughness.
Deep down, it really ate at me
that I could never get back
to the US Open.
[man] Follow the steps
[Mardy] It wasn't about winning.
I didn't really care about that part.
I had a different purpose.
Going back and conquering the demons
that took everything away from me
and changed my life forever.
But I still hadn't come out
about my issues with mental health.
So I thought it was a perfect time
to sorta tell my story.
There was kind of a family discussion
whether he should come out with it.
Everybody wasn't sure
about how it would impact his
like, his career.
There was some debate
as to whether or not he should do it.
Mardy wanted to do it. I thought
it would be good for him to do it.
Some other people
had discouraged him from doing it.
You're
exposing your weakness,
and a weakness isn't
Not good for an athlete.
Look, I love sports.
Um, I've loved sports my whole life.
When I was going through
this whole process,
I didn't really have
a success story I could find
where a world-class athlete
had mental health issues
and then came back,
and came back at the highest level.
So I wrote a story to be released
the first day of the US Open.
[emotional music playing]
I had trouble with anxiety disorder, um
for the past three years,
so that's why I haven't been back.
And, um, when you can't control it,
it's, uh
it's pretty tough.
[Marty] I really wanted people
to understand
beating the stigma of, "Hey, suck it up,"
um, is really important
because it's not as easy as that.
There's absolutely no telling
if two months down the road,
or or maybe even less,
if I didn't get help,
if I didn't get the medication,
if I didn't have someone there
with me all the time,
I have no idea if I'd still be here.
[Mardy] It helps me personally
to be open and talk about it.
I've spoken to some players privately,
and maybe they're just not comfortable,
you know, right here with cameras on 'em
talking about it,
but now I've gotten to the point where
I wanna share my story so I can help.
[reporter] Thanks a lot, Mardy.
[applause]
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome Mardy Fish!
-[fan] Mardy!
-[crowd cheering]
[Tom] When Mardy came out with his story
and we read it ourselves,
I was so proud of him.
[crowd cheering]
[host] What will his legacy be?
For a long time, people knew Mardy Fish,
but he was always obscured a bit
by Andy Roddick.
Honestly, I think
his being so open about mental health,
which is always
a bit of a taboo in sports,
I think that's a defining point
for Mardy Fish.
He got a lot of thanks from other players.
Current players, former players
-[inaudible]
-they were all very appreciative
that he had the courage to come out
and talk about his issues the way he did.
And to be able to
[voice breaking] help him do that, uh
it meant a lot.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
Mardy Fish!
Let's hear it for him, New York!
[cheering and applause]
Say, "Bye-bye, tennis!"
Bye-bye, tennis!
Bye-bye, tennis!
Bye-bye, tennis!
The United States has been playing
Davis Cup for 120 years.
They have won 32 titles.
They have just named their 41st captain.
Mardy Fish is the new captain of Team USA.
["Same" by Trey Gruber plays]
[Mardy] The head of the USTA
called me and said,
"Well, uh, we've decided to offer you
the position of Davis Cup captain."
And, uh, I mean,
I'll never forget those words.
I was instructed not to tell anyone.
He called me up, and he said,
"You are now talking
to the new US Davis Cup captain."
-[Sally] Oh boy.
-Just like, "Wow!"
He called and just said,
"You have to refer to me as Captain
from now on." [laughs]
I was like, "You know what, Mardy?
You can still eat shit
because, you know,
you're still Mardy Fish."
[Christian] Mardy called and said
he wanted to get the old band
back together
and see if we could do it one more time,
and I said, "Absolutely."
[Mardy] Davis Cup is
our major team competition.
It's like the World Cup of soccer.
The captain picks the team
and runs the team,
and it's the perfect way for me
to help the future of American tennis.
[Tom] With Mardy as the 41st captain,
I think it's a great statement
not just for Mardy,
but for maybe mental health issues
in American tennis.
[Kevin] In a lot of ways,
I think Mardy's mental toughness,
it's even more impressive.
His ability to process things,
then communicate them
and not being afraid
to confront his demons
is gonna be a really important part
of why he's gonna be a good coach
and a great captain.
[Andy] I think he'll be best at the job,
and he should have the job.
But battling through to where
you don't care about the judgment anymore
is the part I'm most proud of.
I'm glad Mardy got to the point
where he could decide
the risk was worth the reward.
[Mardy] Look, I will always
deal with some sort of mental health.
I used to say to my doctors, "I can't wait
for this to go away and be behind me."
He's like, "I hate to tell you, but this
is always gonna be part of your life."
And still, you know,
six, seven, eight years past, um
uh, it's still, um
still is a daily battle,
but I win every day.
["Same" by Trey Gruber playing]
[music slowing down]
[music distorts]
[music stops]