Why Mardy Fish will not win the Miami 2012 Tennis Tournament

Last season was a banner year for the current top ranked American Mardy Fish. He finished in the Top 10 for the first time in his career in a season where he won his personal best of 43 matches, which included winning his sixth title in Atlanta. He successfully defended his Atlanta title beating now #2 American John Isner by saving two match points. He entered the top 10 for the first time in April and achieved his best Wimbledon result with a quarterfinal showing before losing to Rafael Nadal in 4 sets. He took home a career high of $1,657,091 in earnings for the year.

Fish's 2012 season is not turning out to be a good follow-up of his success last year. As of this writing, he has reached the fourth round of the 2012 Miami tennis tournament and scored his first back-to-back wins this year only in this tournament for a 6-4 record. By contrast, he had a 10-5 record at this time last year. In last year's Sony Ericsson Open, he reached the semifinals by downing then #6 ranked David Ferrer in the quarterfinals before losing soundly to eventual champion Novak Djokovic.

This year, it is hard to see him duplicate that effort, yet alone win the tournament. He is scheduled to play #12-seed Nicholas Almagro as his next opponent in the fourth round. Almagro is one of two players this year with 20 wins or more, the other player being Roger Federer. The Spaniard has performed better than Fish in hard-court surfaces reaching the round of 16 at the Australian Open and the quarterfinals of Indian Wells. Fish does hold a 2-0 advantage in their career head-to-head but if he gets past the Spaniard, he will most likely face world #3 and 16-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer. Federer holds a 7-1 advantage over Fish although their last two matches won by the Swiss went into a deciding set.

If Fish happens to beat Federer, he will reach the semifinal stage against world #1 Novak Djokovic. The top-ranked Serb holds a 7-0 record over Fish and has been victorious in all six of their hard court matches. Fish has hope though, knowing he can draw some inspiration with how fellow American John Isner topped Djokovic at the 2012 Indian Wells tournament. But Isner and Fish are in opposite trajectories this year: Isner is climbing up the rankings this season as compared to Fish who is about to be supplanted by Isner as the top American player.

If somehow Fish does the improbable and beat Federer and Djokovic in back-to-back matches, he will most likely face Rafael Nadal or Andy Murray in the finals. Nadal holds an 8-1 advantage over the American but Fish did beat Nadal in straight sets at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Cincinnati quarterfinals last year. As for Murray, Fish has a respectable 4-4 record against UK's top player although Murray beat Fish in their last meeting. While fans of the amicable American, this blogger included, are wishing for his success, it would take a huge reversal on his current form, and a lot of unexpected results for the top players to lose, to pave way for Fish to have a shot at winning the Miami 2012 tennis tournament.