Eighth-seeded Fish reaches fourth round

Now that Mardy Fish seems to have worked out a personal Feng Shui, his mind and body properly aligned for the best run of his tennis career at 29, he is attempting to rearrange the furniture at the U.S. Open.

So far, so good. Against the physically imposing Kevin Anderson, a 6-8 South African ranked 34th, Fish again lived up to his career-high Grand Slam seed of No. 8 with a 6-4, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) third-round victory Saturday.

That five-time Open champion Roger Federer, a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 winner over former Open quarterfinalist Marin Cilic, lurks in Fish's quarter of the draw is not yet a consideration. As Federer said after his match, "I'm on track because I'm in the tournament. That's the most important thing at the end of the day. I seriously don't care how I'm playing; as long as I'm in the tournament, I have a shot.''

Fish, up to now, has encountered no real difficulty. While Anderson twice took him to tiebreaker sets, Fish rolled through the tiebreakers, during which Anderson seemed especially vulnerable to unforced errors. (Anderson totaled 51 in the match.)

"I'm taking care of my serve games,'' Fish said. "It's just that I haven't found a great rhythm yet, and didn't serve at a really high percentage''-- only 54 percent of his first serves in play. "I'd like to clean that up. But it's tough to get picky.''

Beyond his commitment, after knee surgery in 2009, to get fit -- he lost 30 pounds -- Fish said he couldn't pinpoint a specific time or match when his competitive world began to come together so nicely.

"You know, I felt like I was getting close last year,'' he said. "I knew there was something different because I felt so much better on the court, off the court.

"So I didn't know what was on the horizon, but I knew that I was a different person, a different player. People ask, 'Where was that moment when you changed everything?' It was certainly after the surgery. But you know, maybe it was as recent at Cincinnati, maybe as recent as going out and playing a match like I did against Rafa.''

In Cincinnati two weeks ago, Fish defeated 10-time major-tournament champ Rafael Nadal for the first time in seven career attempts. Here, he "got lucky the first two rounds'' of the draw, matched against a 92nd-ranked German, Tobias Kamke, and qualifier Malek Jaziri of Tunisia, ranked 181st, before Anderson.

So, while the streaking top seed Novak Djokovic -- a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 winner over Nikolay Davydenko Saturday night -- is in Fish's half of the draw, as well as Federer, Fish refuses to worry about that now. "There is a lot of things that go wrong," he said. "I mean, I probably won 51 percent of the points today" -- 131 vs. 117, specifically -- "and that means you lose 49 percent of the time. That's a lot of losing. So whatever you can do to try to manage that is your best way."

Meanwhile, "It's just really exciting to be in the position I'm in. I'm not taking anything for granted. I'm not acting like I've been here forever. I'm just being hungry to take advantage of every opportunity.''