Fish falls to Tsonga in wind-swept 5 sets

The wind, figuratively at Mardy Fish's back all year, literally turned on him and his fourth-round U.S. Open opponent, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, last night.

Amid the swirling gusts inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, what Fish judged to be "my best chance so far'' to push to a major singles final was gone in a 6-4, 6-7 (5), 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 battle against Tsonga and the unhelpful conditions.

Arriving at the Open with his highest major seeding at No. 8, the 29-year-old Fish squeezed out a two-set lead by winning a tight second-set tiebreaker -- with the help of a crucial net-cord winner -- and by converting his first break of Tsonga's serve late in the third set.

But Tsonga, 26, the athletic Frenchman who rebounded from two sets down to beat Roger Federer this summer at Wimbledon, was unfazed. "When you feel good physically,'' said Tsonga, whose career has been delayed by various injuries, "you feel good in your head, and then you know, even if you are two sets down, you can win in five sets.''

Tsonga "picked up his game better than I did in the fifth set,'' Fish said of the No. 11 seed. "I can look myself in the mirror. I can sleep pretty well knowing I'm doing everything I possibly can.

"But it's a little annoying we had to play a match like that, when we're both playing well coming in, both confident, on a great surface for both of us. The conditions completely took it away from us. It's kind of a shame.''

With the wind appearing to force its share of errors -- Fish made 59 unforced, Tsonga 55 -- Tsonga was left with the conviction that being "really, really strong in my head'' eventually made the difference. "My game,'' he said, "is very good when I have nothing in my head, when I don't think about other things like the wind, people in the box, all this stuff, the photographers.''

His reference to the box was the result of a Tsonga complaint to the umpire about a heckler, whom he first believed to be in Fish's box, and then his instructions to his own box to "stay quiet.'' Both men insisted there were no repercussions.

Tsonga got a quick service break to start the fifth set and began to cruise, suddenly muting the day-old buzz about the resurgent performance of American men at the Open, with four players in the fourth round for the first time since 2003. And Fish, the top-ranked U.S. player, was left considering how close he had come to at last picking a few locks at the Open.

"I've made three quarterfinals [in majors] and I've played Nadal, Nadal and Roddick,'' he said. "You know, those aren't bad losses.

"But I [would have] had to go through Tsonga, Federer, Djokovic and Nadal, whoever's on the other side. That's a whole lot of guys. That's a really tough draw. I'm disappointed. But I couldn't have hoped for a better summer. I'll remember beating Rafa and getting really close to that title in Montreal.

"I'm not Djokovic and those guys. I don't win tournaments every week.''

This one, included.