Mardy Fish must feel his buddy, Andy Roddick’s pain.  Roddick had not lost serve until the final game that gave Wimbledon 2009 to Roger Federer.  Fish hadn’t been broken either, until 4-all in the third set, when Fed got to 30-40 and Fish netted a shot.  Fed had had chances including a marathon third game in the first set that went to at least eight deuces.  Fish managed to eke out that game and eventually take the first set in a tiebreak.

Federer struggled on return throughout the match, going for big shots and frequently missing it, or watching a Fish ace whiz by him.  Federer was, however, holding his own serve fairly easily with only one game at break point.  Federer took control of the second set tiebreak and won that comfortably.

Third set was, again, pretty even until the 4-all game.  Federer then served out the set to win 6-4 and won the Cincy title for the second year in a row (he had been winning this title in odd years) and his fourth time after winning it in 2005, 2007, and 2009.

This win also marks Federer’s 17th Masters win tying him with Andre Agassi.  Both of them are one Masters title behind Rafael Nadal who has won 18 Masters titles.

Fish can look at this tournament as one of his best ever, a great resurgence in his career as he is close to 29 years old.  Fish is scheduled to play New Haven, but having reached the finals of Cincy, he might choose to take a break.  Fish did skip Toronto earlier on, but may find rest and training better for his US Open chances.

Next week, New Haven starts (actually, it’s already started).  The top 16 seeds are: Baghdatis, Bellucci, Gonzalez, Fish, Golubev, Robredo, Dolgopolov, Mayer, Shakhovsky, Troicki, Malisse, De Bakker, Berrer, Chela, Istomin, and Hanescu.

Last year’s finalists, Sam Querrey and Fernando Verdasco, are not playing.

Fed will now head into the US Open as the number 2 seed and see if can re-capture the US Open.