LOS ANGELES – Hopes were high. Ryan Harrison – just 19, baby face – was close to being anointed with that critical mantel in tennis: America’s next great hope. Why not?
Just last year he was a gallant loser at the U.S. Open. At Indian Wells, he beat Milos Raonic during a fine run to the fourth round, where he met Roger Federer, who dismissed him with ease. Still, Harrison came away with confidence, knowing that he won many a forehand-to-forehand rally with Fed, who some say has the best forehand ever.
After that, Harrison won three matches – thank you very much – in the Wimbledon qualifying and main draw and then streaked to his first ATP semi in Atlanta last week. Here in L.A. the Cajun kept raging as he beat Richard Berankis, Michael Russell and Yen-Hsun Lu to reach his second semi this week, where he would once again face Mardy Fish.
Though still just ranked No. 94, he went in against America’s top player with no lack of confidence. When asked if he’d be the next American to raise grand slam trophy, he replied without hesitation: “Yes.” He also announced that he’d learned a couple things from his 6-2, 6-4 loss to Mardy Fish in Atlanta. This semi, Harrison said, would be a different day.
But it wasn’t, especially at the start. While Fish opened the match by playing sublime ball, Harrison seemed lost – backhands in the alleys, flailing forehands. In just 20 minutes, he’d dropped the first set, 6-0 – bagel.
“I just shocked him, probably, in the beginning,” Fish said. “[But] anytime you win a set relatively easily you know the guy is going to ‘reset’ when that first one is over. So you expect them to play better and he did, he played a lot better.”
Just in the nick of time, Harrison found his serve. And those once-faltering forehands started to find the corners. “For me, it was just a matter of getting on the [score]board,” Harrison said, before he could dig in. He held his service games with relative ease, but then so, too, did Fish. Surely, the second set was headed for a tiebreak.
Then, from nowhere, Fish – the 11-year pro, the Olympic silver medalist, the highest ranked American – played an inexplicably horrid game. A forehand error, a high-arching drop shot, a double fault and another forehand error.
What a gift, Christmas in July. In a flash, Fish for the first time in four sets against Harrison, Fish lost his serve and with it the second set, 6-4. “Didn’t play a great game there,” Fish said, stating the obvious. “You don’t want to be in a third set.”
But not to worry, the veteran promptly broke back early in the decisive third set to lead 2-1, but would again play a loose service game and Harrison broke back to even the score 3-3. When the set finally went into a decisive tiebreak, Fish scored three mini breaks and opened a 5-0 lead. Five points later he finished the match with a 119-mph ace, and then after his 6-0, 4-6, 7-6 (3) again it was Fish and Harrison hugging at the net, the veteran giving the kid yet another better-luck-next-time pat on the back.
“The learning curve’s pretty high,” Fish said of Harrison’s performance from last week to this one. “I’d buy stock if you could. He’s way ahead of where I was at 19. … He impressed me more today than he has.
“You know, you look at the younger players and it’s impossible to figure out how good they’re going to be. But if you have these sort of moments where you beat players like [Ivan] Ljubicic (as Harrison did at last year’s US Open), and beat someone like Raonic who [was] playing well…It just kind of shows you they can play well and once they figure out how to play well at a high level consistently, he’ll figure it out.”
And little else would please millions of hungry American zealots. After all, they say, this kid is the nation’s next great hope.
