Both Americans won comfortable first sets by breaking the Czech in his opening service game. Instead of a tiebreak decided by one mini-break (in Roddick’s match), Fish made three unforced backhand errors to drop serve and lose the second set, 4-6. Fish then unloaded four consecutive unforced forehand errors to donate a break at 2-3 in the third set. Two more missed forehands in his service game at 2-5 lost him the match.

Said Fish: “Everything went, including my legs. You just start feeling a little tight. To say that it doesn’t creep into your mind that you’ve lost all those finals. I think I have 10 losses in finals now, so that’s a lot of losses.

“I felt like I played better the first two sets today than in previous finals—a lot of previous finals. Definitely New Haven. Indian Wells was kind of a streaky match. It’s in there now that I’ve lost a few.”

Fishiest (tie): What gave Stepanek the stamina to come back and win three consecutive matches after dropping the first set (for a total of four such wins this week)? Radek credited the cuisine from a local sushi restaurant where he had dinner the last few nights.

Sliciest: Stepanek’s backhand. Roddick summed up its particular effectiveness in San Jose. “The court here doesn’t really allow much height on the ball. Throughout the week, it stays low and that’s great for him. If you can get it up, that creates the ability to put more on it, or hit an angle. But if he’s hitting deep, and his ball is staying low, you’re forced to hit up on it. So it makes it tough to be pretty aggressive. You’re hitting up, which makes it difficult to try to pull him off the court.”

Diciest: Stepanek’s imitation of Lleyton Hewitt with repeated shouts of “Come on!” after Fish’s errors in the final. His own winners, on the other hand, received only a modest, silent fist pump.

Meatiest quote: Fish on Stepanek’s reputation for gamesmanship. “I didn’t think he was injured at all. If you put a tally on how many times he calls the trainer, it would be pretty high. I would be shocked if I was up a set and he didn’t call for the trainer. He called the trainer against James [Blake] in L.A. for his back, then did The Worm after the match. It’s par for the course. I think you know what you’re going to get, what to expect. I would have been completely surprised if he had just gone with the flow of the match.”

Timeliest: Fish on hearing the news that Shahar Peer’s visa to visit the United Arab Emirates was denied, thus preventing her from playing the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. “I saw it on CNN this morning when I was getting coffee. That seems pretty crazy. That seems insane. Maybe the WTA should step in and say, ‘Look, if you have a tournament, you’ve got to invite everybody that deserves to play.’ She certainly deserves to play. Just off the top of my head, I would assume, I’m no diplomat, that the WTA would step up [and take a stand].”

In response to a hypothetical question asking if the same situation arose with Israeli Andy Ram, Fish had this to say:

“I’ve heard nothing but good things about that tournament, that city, that country. We would all have to sit down as a union and discuss it. I certainly would support something like that. I’ve never been over there. I’ve never been asked to play that event. It comes right at the same time as Memphis, and I’m a big fan of Memphis. So I probably won’t be playing that tournament too often, so I’m probably a little biased. But at this point, I would think for sure that the tour, or the WTA Tour, would step in.”


Photos from the 2009 SAP Open Tennis Tournament.