FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — American qualifier Ryan
Harrison, at 18 the youngest player left in the men’s draw, saw his U.S. Open run come to an end in the second round against Sergiy Stakhovksy on Friday.
But the Louisianan didn’t go down without a fight.
The home-schooled teen pushed his 24-year-old Ukrainian foe, who was coming off the New Haven title, to five sets, winning 30 of 43 serve-and-volley points and impressing onlookers with his ability to scramble and put away any and all lobs. But his relative inexperience may have cost him in the fifth-set tiebreaker, where he let three match points slip through his fingers in a heartbreaking 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(6) loss.
“All these guys who are playing at this level, they execute at the big moments,” said Harrison, who’s coached by his father, Pat, a former touring pro and the mastermind behind his son’s all-court game. “Whenever the money is on the line, they come out big. That’s exactly what he did.”
Harrison led 6-3 in the telltale tiebreaker, but Stakhovsky responded with two big serves, rushing the net on both and putting first volleys away. Then, with the match on his racket at 6-5, Harrison smacked a kick serve that missed wide. He played too conservatively off the second serve, eventually dumping a backhand into the net.
“I didn’t go about it the way I should have,” said Harrison, who was remarkably composed after the nail-biting loss. “I went about it the exact way that I wanted to. I went to my towel, I took time, I tried to control the first serve and put it in there. But I feel like once you’re there and you’re just trying to execute it, it’s just a matter of practice and what you’ve done. At that point, it’s up to your routines and your breathing and everything like that. I did that pretty well. I just didn’t execute.”
The No. 220-ranked Harrison double faulted at 6-6 and Stakhovsky, ranked No. 36, went on to serve out the match in four hours, 13 minutes.
“When you’re facing a player who you’ve never seen playing before, you don’t know what you can expect,” said Stakhovsky, who will ride a seven-match winning streak into the third round against Spain’s Feliciano Lopez, who also went five sets in beating Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-4, 6-7(4), 5-7, 7-6(3), 6-2. “And if he’s beaten [Ivan] Ljubicic in the first round in four sets, then your expectations are going up a bit bigger. It’s not easy to beat Ivan on a hard court. He played the way I expected. He came in a lot, he’s got a great serve, moving around really well. It was a really long and tough match today.”
Stakhovsky didn’t shy away from the net either, winning 21 of 33 serve-and-volley points and 54 of 91 total net points.
Of the atmosphere inside the rowdy-but-partisan, packed-to-the-rafters Grandstand Court, Stakhovsky quipped, “It was nice, I mean, except that 99.9 percent of the people were against me.”
Harrison had attempted to qualify for the U.S. Open on two previous occasions, losing in the first round of qualifying in both ’08 and ’09. This year, he won three qualifying matches to reach the main draw. In ’08, at the tender age of 15, he became the third youngest player to win an ATP Tour match since ’90 (behind Richard Gasquet and Rafael Nadal) in Houston. Ever since, he’s been one of the names bandied about in the ongoing conversation surrounding the future of American tennis. The lessons learned (and the confidence gained) at Flushing Meadows will likely go a long way for the nation’s most highly touted men’s prospect since Donald Young.
“I’ve always had the mentality where I’ve wanted to be the best and I’ve always wanted to be the top, to win Grand Slams,” said the Harrison. “But with that being said, it’s a ways away. This was the breakout run of my career, and in the Round of 64. So I’ve got to really keep working.”
NOTEBOOK
NO DJOK: Monsour Bahrami is a-laugh-a-minute funnyman. Henri Leconte is a mime extraordinaire. But no one in tennis has a comic sensibility quite like that of Novak Djokovic. The Serb won over the New York crowd with his unforgettable, spot-on imitations of Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick, etc. at the U.S. Open in ’07. He had ’em roaring in the aisles with his Michael Jackson/Thriller impersonation at a player party in Monte Carlo. And he’s been on a roll thus far at the ’10 U.S. Open. Following his five-set first-round win over fellow Serb Victor Troicki, Djokovic said stepping out of the unrelenting sun into the shade gave him “a sleeping-with-my-girlfriend kind of feeling.” Asked by Brad Gilbert after his next match if he had a between-the-legs shot like Roger Federer, Novak he told the Ashe Stadium crowd, “I have something else between my legs. Don’t worry, I won’t show it to you tonight.”
GOT NOISE?: The Australian Open has the sun, the beaches. Wimbledon has the history. And Paris is, well, Paris. When it comes to what sets the U.S. Open apart from the other majors, Robin Soderling said, “This is definitely the loudest one.”
AWKWARD EXCHANGE OF THE WEEK:
REPORTER: “I know you’re recently married. Can you talk about how that has helped you?”
ROBIN SODERLING: “I’m not married.”
BREAKTHROUGH WIN: No. 371-ranked Beatrice Capra upset Aravene Rezai 7-5, 2-6, 6-3 to become the lowest-ranked woman to reach the third round of the U.S. Open since American Bea Bielik in ’02. (Capra had never won a WTA Tour match prior to the start of the Open, and needed to win an eight-woman USTA playoff to earn the final wildcard.
SHOT OF THE DAY: Okay, it wasn’t Roger Federer‘s between-the-legs masterpiece, but Ryan Harrison seemed to channel the Swiss in the second set of his match against Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky on Friday. The 18-year-old American sprinted to the baseline to chase down a Stakhovsky lob, then smacked a backward facing forehand wraparound passing shot into the corner to hold at 2-1. A stunned Stakhovsky could only offer a thumbs up.
WOZ IN A NAME?: Veteran journalist Art Spander dubbed Caroline Wozniacki “The Wonderful Wizard of Woz.”
AND GOD CREATED ANDRE’S BIO: In a Sept. 3 interview with Andre Agassi at New York’s Town Hall, host Rick Reilly called Agassi’s bio “Open” the “Sistine Chapel of books,” adding that it is “so hot, literally incendiary, that you need oven mitts just to read it.”
THE SERBIAN GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE: Ana Ivanovic, who’s showing glimpses of her former No. 1 form in moving into the fourth round (where she’ll face Kim Clijsters), is one of the most prolific readers in tennis. The Serb, who once went into great detail about books on psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, said that this summer she’s been reading a lot of Stieg Larsson, including “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl Who Played With Fire.” “I’m on the third book,” said Ivanovic. “I’ve read about 50 pages in the last few weeks. I haven’t had much time to read.” Ivanovic said she could identify with the books’ main character, Elizabeth Salander, a feisty woman who won’t put up with any nonsense. “I do recognize myself in some of them. I do get very stubborn sometimes. That’s a little bit annoying to my coaches. But, hey, you have to take the bad, too.”
HEADLINES
FISH TURNS TIDE
THE NUMBERS
10: Years since one of the most unusual matches in U.S. Open history, when eventual champ Marat Safin overcame a pair of rain delays to defeat Sebastien Grosjean, 6-4, 7-6(3), 1-6, 3-6, 7-6(5) in the third round. Safin endured an 85-minute rain delay in the fifth set and was forced to borrow a pair of socks from Jeff Tarango. During an hour and 45-minute rain delay in the fifth-set tiebreak, Safin borrowed a new shirt, socks and shorts from Nicolas Kiefer.
12: Consecutive games won by Kim Clijsters against Czech Petra Kvitova after falling behind 3-0 in the first set.
11: Frenchmen who reached the second round at the U.S. Open.
3: Match points Ryan Harrison was unable to convert in his 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(6) loss to Sergiy Stakhovsky.
QUOTEBOOK
“My tournaments are not based on what Serena does.” — Kim Clijsters
