Q&A: U.S. Davis Cup captain     Mardy Fish  

Team USA Davis Cup captain Mardy Fish this week named Taylor Fritz, Reilly Opelka, Sam Querrey, Frances Tiafoe and Jack Sock to his five-player squad for the 2019 Davis Cup finals in Madrid in November. 

First-year captain Fish spoke with USTA.com to discuss his team selection, the importance of the doubles point, the absence of John Isner and the future of American tennis. 

USTA.com: You named a young, exciting team. Can you explain what went into your thought process?

Mardy Fish: Yeah, very exciting. We’ve got three really good youngsters, 21, 22 and under, sort of inside that Top 40-45 in the world, and certainly they’re the future for us. We want to keep them involved and have them definitely a part of the team. They’re not only our best players, but they’re also our future, so it’s nice to have their support and for them to be fully on board, fully engaged with wanting to be a part of it.

We have got a really versatile team, as well. We’ve got guys that can do both pretty successfully—both being singles and doubles—so we’ve got a really deep team. We have a lot of great options to throw out there.

USTA.com: How do you find the right balance between bringing in youth and having that vital experience?

Mardy Fish: These guys are all great friends, even the older ones. Sam’s as good of friends with these youngsters as they are with each other almost, so that helps. There’s a really nice camaraderie with all the guys, even though it’s quite a difference in age gap there, so that certainly helps me a lot. I’ve given them full transparency as we’ve gone on and as we’ve been through this selection process, so they’re all excited to be a part of it, and I’m just as excited to have them.

USTA.com: When you look at Taylor, Frances and Reilly, what are the biggest things these guys bring to the table?

Mardy Fish: I mean, huge games, first of all. The ability to beat anyone at any time, there’s certainly no doubt about that, and we’ve seen it over the course of the last six to eight months now. We’ve seen some nice wins from the guys, especially from guys that we’ll be playing. Reilly had a great win over [Fabio] Fognini at the [US] Open, and these aren’t just normal tournaments. These are big events, and they’ve played these guys, so it’s nice to have that.

Every one of these guys on this team has played finals of tournaments and quarterfinals of Grand Slams, semifinals of Grand Slams even, so they’re certainly well versed to playing big matches. This format is obviously a little bit different; playing for your team and your country is like no other. Two of the guys have never played, and Frances has played once, so that’s going to be new, but I think they’ll thrive. 

USTA.com: One of the guys who does have a lot of experience but isn’t on the roster is John [Isner]. Was that your decision? His decision? How did you come to that selection?

Mardy Fish: John and I had conversations throughout the year. He’s in the process of adding on to his family, and that was certainly something that we came together on, and he felt that he wouldn’t be as fully ready as he felt he needed to be. So he declined to play, but just because of that and not because he didn’t want to play or because he didn’t want to be a part of it. We’ll certainly look forward to having him next year.

USTA.com: Now that you’ve seen the lineups that the Canadians and Italians are going to be bringing to Madrid, what do you think will be the keys in those two round-robin matches?

Mardy Fish: I think we’ve got, in my opinion, the best doubles player in the world by a significant margin in Jack Sock, and he is as important as Novak Djokovic is to Serbia. The way the format is now, doubles is massive, so if we can get a couple singles wins early on and really get the guys rolling, we can rely on Jack quite heavily to push us through, and that is exciting. We know what Jack can do on the singles court, as well. We’ve got a very deep team, and we’ve got the best doubles player in the world on our team, so that’s a huge asset.

USTA.com: A lot of people have been speculating when the next wave of American talent is finally going to break through. Considering the team you’ve named and those three youngsters specifically, is it fair to say that those guys are here and they’re here to stay now?

Mardy Fish: Yeah, that’s for sure. Those three guys, for sure, are the present and the future of American tennis, and hopefully there’ll be more. There are some guys... Tommy Paul jumps out at you. He’s ranked 80 in the world now. He’s the same age; he just hasn’t had the success that those guys have. Hopefully the success that they’ve had, he’s watching and learning and growing and will be right there with them and give us more options. But there are plenty more that are coming up the pipeline, and so it goes in waves and generations. We don’t have Andy Roddick on our team, per se, right now, but who’s to say we won’t have next year?