Mardy Fish, Minnesota native, tearing through Wimbledon, leaving injured line judges in wake [VIDEO]

Minnesota's next major pro sports championship could come courtesy of this guy.

Mardy Fish is the best Minnesota athlete you've probably never heard of.

Unheralded for most of his career, Fish, 30, has emerged as a singles threat during the last five years. He's currently ranked 12th in the world, the second-best ranking for any American behind 10th-ranked John Isner. And his path to the Wimbledon semifinals looks wide open -- he's currently up one set to none in his rain-suspended 4th-round matchup against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Should be defeat Tsonga, Fish will be heavily favored in his quarterfinal match.

In fact, Fish has been hitting the ball so hard on Wimbledon's grass courts, line judges apparently aren't able to get out of the way.

During the first set of today's suspended match against Tsonga, Fish hit a 118-mile-per-hour serve that struck a young female line judge smack in the eye. Though she initially tried to downplay the severity of her injury, she was eventually escorted off the court and replaced by a substitute judge. Nonetheless, the judge was professional enough to keep her eye on the ball long enough to call Fish's serve out (though after the injury delay, he was granted another first serve). Here's the video:



Born in Edina, Fish and his family moved to Florida when he was four. Nonetheless, he remains "one of us," as evidence by his public support for Minnesota's pro sports teams. Consider this tweet, offered up the night the Twins won their first game of the season:

Yessss! @Twins are on the board. I'd be shocked if we lost again this year...

-- Mardy Fish (@MardyFish) April 12, 2012

And this tweet, posted in the wake of the tragic news that Minnesota's beloved Ricky Rubio had torn his ACL:

Terrible news for my guy @rickyrubio9 Get better soon...

-- Mardy Fish (@MardyFish) March 10, 2012

If the 10th-seeded Fish does somehow defy the odds and win a Wimbledon championship, expect a Kevin Garnett-esque "This is for 'Sota!" during his post-match interview.