'I don’t think he’s okay': Rajeev Ram hits back at Mardy Fish after 'strange' comments

Former doubles world number one Rajeev Ram has hit back at fellow countryman Mardy Fish after his criticism in the recent past. The two have had a tough relationship in the past as well, when Fish was the captain during the Davis Cup, and he decided not to include Ram in the team.

The incident took place in 2022 when Fish, the former world number seven in the singles category, was the captain of the USA’s Davis Cup team. The 43-year-old controversially decided to drop Ram, who was then the world number one in the doubles category, and included Sock instead. The decision backfired as Team USA was eventually knocked out in the quarterfinal after losing to Italy in the deciding doubles match. Back then, moments after the defeat, which came on Thanksgiving Day, Ram posted a sarcastic comment on X: “How’s everyone’s Thanksgiving going?”

Recently, world number one Jannik Sinner featured in the Cincinnati Open. The 24-year-old played in the final of the competition, where he was forced to withdraw because of illness. Interestingly, that fixture came just a day before the start of the US Open mixed doubles event, which for the first time was set to be played as a standalone event.

Sinner was supposed to feature in the competition with Katerina Siniakova, but ended up withdrawing from the competition as well because of illness. American journalist Jon Wertheim, in a post on X right after the Cincinnati Open final, stated that in his opinion, Sinner will not be able to take part in the competition, and his spot should be given to someone like Ram, who has won two Grand Slams in the doubles category as well. In response to that, Mardy took a dig at Ram and wrote: “How about another actual tennis play”.

It is really strange, says Ram

Ram has now hit back at Fish for such comments. The 41-year-old recently appeared in an episode of The Changeover Podcast, where he responded to comments from Fish. Ram was of the opinion that such comments coming from someone who claims to be a ‘mental health advocate’ are really strange.

“It is really strange,” said Ram. “I mean, the guy that positioned himself as the mental health advocate, and rightfully so, is taking shots at another player—as you said, a compatriot—from behind a keyboard. No matter what I might think about somebody personally, I could never see myself doing that in a million years.”

Ram then went on to state that at one stage he used to look up Fish, who, according to him, had a ‘great career’. Ram also stated that the two have not spoken since the summer of 2022 and hoped that Fish is okay, who, according to him, is ‘not okay’.

“I mean, I hope he’s okay,” said Ram. “I don’t think he’s okay, if he’s doing that kind of thing, but I hope he finds a way to get better from that. He’s actually somebody I looked up to for a really long time. “He’s a couple years older than me… He had a great career, was a Top 10 player, was our Davis Cup captain for a while. We haven’t spoken to each other in three years, since… summer or fall of 2022.”

Talking about moving forward, Ram stated that he is not interested in escalating things further and stated that he has not much to say except that what happened was ‘super strange’. “I don’t really have much more to say, other than it’s a super strange thing,” he said. “It’s not something that shows he’s doing that well… He must be in a pretty tough spot if he’s resorting to doing that stuff.”