Fish stumbles out of Atlanta event

Injury forces 2-time defending champion to forfeit match.

ATLANTA:

Two-time defending champ Mardy Fish surrendered the Atlanta Open tennis crown when an injured left ankle forced him to retire from his second-round match.

The second-seeded American was leading Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller 6-4, 3-2 when he called it quits at the hardcourt event.

Fish, 30, stumbled while trying to return a drop shot and rolled his left ankle at the net, dropping to the ground and staying down for about a minute.

He got up and limped off to his sideline chair, sat down for a short break and returned to finish the fifth game but then chose to withdraw.

Fish, who beat compatriot John Isner in the last two Atlanta finals, recently underwent a procedure called cardiac catheter ablation, which deals with misfiring electrical pulses in the heart.

Isner advanced to the quarter-finals by defeating Ruben Bemelmans 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. Matthew Ebden beat James Blake 6-7 (6/8), 6-4, 6-4.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 21^st, 2012.