Mardy Fish
MARDY FISH WINS FIRST POWERSHARES SERIES TITLE IN NEWPORT
NEWPORT, R.I. – Mardy Fish won his first career title on the PowerShares Series Sunday, spoiling Andy Roddick’s day after his International Tennis Hall of Fame induction with a 7-5 victory in the one-set championship match.
Playing in his first career final on the North American tennis circuit for champion tennis players over the age of 30, Fish broke Roddick at 5-5 on the grass courts at the Newport Casino with some rocket returns and a crafty backhand slice that neutralized the forehand of the 2003 U.S. Open Champion. Fish went on to hold serve at 6-5 enabling him to hoist his first trophy of his PowerShares Series career.
“It was a blast,” said Fish of his first PowerShares Series title. “What a special weekend it has been for all the Hall of Fame inductees, especially my buddy.”
Fish, playing for the second year on the PowerShares Series, won one of his six ATP World Tour singles titles in Newport in 2010 while also winning the Newport doubles title in 2008 with John Isner, who won the Newport ATP title shortly after Fish’s PowerShares Series win over Roddick.
To advance into the final earlier in the day, Fish beat Jim Courier 6-3 in the first semifinal, while Roddick defeated James Blake 6-2 in the second semifinal.
Fish earned 400 PowerShares ranking points with the tournament win to move into a third-place tie with John McEnroe in the PowerShares Series rankings. Roddick leads the PowerShares Series rankings with 1300 points, picking up 200 points for the runner-up showing. Mark Philippoussis, who won in Newport last year, sits in second place with 700 points. Roddick won events earlier this year in Chicago in May and Birmingham in April.
Each PowerShares Series event features two one-set semifinal matches and a one-set championship match and, for the third year, players make their own line calls with assistance of electronic line-calling.
The remaining PowerShares Series for this season schedule with player fields are listed below and ticket, schedule and player information can be found at www.PowerSharesSeries.com;
August 20 – Winston-Salem, N.C. – Andy Roddick, James Blake, Michael Chang, Mardy Fish
August 24-25 – New Haven, Conn. – John McEnroe, James Blake, Michael Chang, Mark Philippoussis
October 6 – Lincoln, Neb. – TBD
October 22 – Los Angeles, Calif. – TBD
In 2016, Mark Philippoussis won the PowerShares Series points title with 1600 points and tournament titles in Memphis, Tulsa, Newport, Winston-Salem and New Haven. Roddick finished in second place, also earning 1600 points but losing the head-to-head tiebreaker with Philippoussis 5-2, while winning titles in Charleston, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Orlando. James Blake finished in third place with 1100 points and tournament titles in Chicago, Portland and Brooklyn.
In 2015, Andy Roddick won the PowerShares Series points title in his second year of competing on the series with 1,600 points. Roddick won a record eight events Los Angeles, Lincoln, Chicago, Austin, Little Rock, Dallas, Richmond and Minneapolis. Blake finished second in the points rankings with 1,200 points, winning events in Boston and Cincinnati. Mark Philippoussis finished in third with 1,100 points, winning titles in Salt Lake City and Vancouver. The year before in 2014, McEnroe won the points title for the first time in the nine-year history of Champions Series tennis by winning events in Kansas City, Indianapolis, Nashville and Charlotte.