Mardy Fish is America’s top seeded player in the 2011 U.S. Open and he showed today that he was deserving of such an honor. Fish easily advanced through the first round with a dominating performance over Germany’s Tobias Kamke 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.
Andy Roddick has been the number one U.S. player for years, but he handed that title to Fish at the start of the U.S. open.
Fish said:
“Andy’s been the No. 1 player in our generation for years. This is extremely different for me, this feeling coming out here and trying to show everything you can, to show you’re the No. 1 guy, at least for this tournament. It’s been a lot of fun.”
But as the top seed, there is a lot of pressure on the 29-year-old from Los Angeles. It’s been 8 years since an American won a Major (Roddick won in New York in 2003) and Fish has an uphill battle against the likes of Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. Fish did beat Nadal at the Western & Southern Open 10 days ago, but it would be quite an upset if he did the same this weekend.
Fish, who is ranked 8th overall, is one of 14 American’s competing at the U.S. Open this year. But the American’s have one less player now as 19-year-old American Ryan Harrison lost today to 27th-seeded Marin Cilic.
On the women’s side, Petra Kvitova was the first major name to fall. Kvitova won the Wimbledon championship this year, but couldn’t make it out of round one at the U.S. Open. Kvitova lost to Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.
Mardy Fish will now go up against Malek Jaziri.
