LOS ANGELES — He gave a simple answer to a simple quest
ion. Inside Tennis asked Ryan Harrison, “Your friend Andy Roddick was the last American to lift a Grand Slam trophy. Will you be the next?” His answer? “Yes.” Surprising? Not really, if you know the guy. Love him or hate him, Harrison is the kind of player who likes to play without a vibration dampener. There isn’t one on the strings of his racket, and there certainly isn’t one on his personality.
He's a fist-pumper and a racket heaver, a scrambler and an arguer. Most importantly, he's becoming a winner. For the second time in as many weeks, he’ll be in an ATP semi. The Future of American Tennis going up against The Present. Mardy Fish, the top-ranked American who sits at No. 9 in the world, awaits. In Atlanta last week, Fish dismissed the kid – 10 years his junior – in straight sets.
“I’ll be ready,” Harrison said on court after a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Taiwan’s Yen-Hsun Lu. “Obviously, the U.S. Open’s the big one, but to say I’m not extremely excited to be through here in L.A. would be a ridiculous understatement. I’m so happy to be here.”
This was the boy Harrison people love: the appreciative, baby-faced kid, the one who fights to run down every ball and then looks sweetly into a TV camera after the match to wish his parents a happy 22nd wedding anniversary. “Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad,” he said. “Love y’all. Thank you guys so much for everything you’ve taught me.”
But just an hour earlier, this was the Harrison who folks didn’t love so much: the one throwing his racket for a third time in the match, this heave an impressive hurl clear across the court from the umpire’s chair past the opposite doubles alley. Harrison was down a set and facing a break point at 3-3, and this particular launch (he’d already slammed his stick straight into the ground twice before) drew a chorus of boos along with a warning from the chair. A few fans sitting on the opposite side of the court even flinched. “No cryin’, Ryan!” one fan yelled. It was an awkward moment, the American fans momentarily turning on their own son. His opponent, who to that point had played smarter, calmer, cleaner tennis, waited patiently as Harrison meandered slowly to grab his stick and resume.
But nine nervy points later, Harrison had shown his mettle and had won back the crowd, finishing the uneasy hold of serve with the old-school serve-and-volley combination that was so effective for him during the U.S. Open last year and put the tennis world on Harrison Notice.
And this is the yin and yang of Harrison’s game: like many Americans before him – McEnroe, Connors, Roddick – you wonder if he’d be anywhere near the same player if not for that temperament. He seems to need it as much as his forehand.
“If you mean energy, then I’ve got a lot of energy,” Harrison told the L.A. Times earlier in the week, when asked about his temper. He’d thrown his racket to the ground that day as well, and at one point berated a linesman who’d called one of his second serves out – “Come on! That’s a terrible call! The ball’s not out if it’s on the line!”
Filled with that similar “energy,” we’ll call it, Harrison played with more aggression as his Friday match against Lu wore on. And in the end, once again, there was victory. It was his 12th comeback win this year after being a set down, which is more than anyone on the Tour.
“I don’t know if it’s the bad start or [I’m] just good at coming back, I don’t know what it is,” Harrison said. “I think it’s just hanging tough. I like to try to get a feel for it, and figure out the match as it goes on and just constantly think about what I can do.”
After the match, Inside Tennis and other members of the media sat down with Harrison to ask him about his game, his background and that fiery demeanor.
Q: You’ve had a great year so far on court, winning some big matches at Indian Wells and now here in the summer season. What about what’s going on in your head, your internal dialog?
RH: A lot of it is being in the situations, you gain experience and you learn how to keep yourself in the right mind frame to be successful. For me it’s staying intense, staying competitive and making sure that I’m still playing all the points without making any unforced errors for no reason, making sure that if he’s going to win points, he plays quality points. It’s an understanding that it’s not one point individually that’s going to win matches or one spectacular shot, it’s the construction of a number of good points played, and knowing that if you win 55 percent of the points, you’re going to win.
Q: You clearly enjoy the process of how to figure out a match.
RH: I wouldn’t say I enjoy losing the first set – it doesn’t feel good. But I’m good about trying to stay competitive. I think it’s a safe bet to say I compete with the best of them, and I think that the fact that no matter what the score is I’m never going to tap out or reach a mental breaking point, and that has always given me an advantage. Through juniors and now into professionals, it’s something I’ve always been able to do and it’s something I think is going to be a great asset moving forward.
Q: Your grandfather was a teacher with not much money and he needed some extra dough, so he started coaching tennis. Can you talk about him?
RH: He’s a bit of a legend in football circles Shreveport. He started teaching to make extra money. I come up from a way different background than a lot of kids growing up in American tennis. My parents made a lot of sacrifices for me to play, they put themselves into a lot of debt for me to be able to travel and get the right coaching…So there’s a different sense of appreciation that I have for being here as opposed to a lot of Americans that grow up in a different environment…My granddad was a great athlete, my dad was a great athlete. I can remember watching my granddad being able to throw footballs 50 yards with both arms – he was ambidextrous and just had great skills all around. He played All American football at Louisiana Tech in 1949 when they used to run the box formation where he was the quarterback but also the running back…I’ve heard a lot of stories from people. You hear a lot of stories about how he was as a person and apparently he had the same fiery competitiveness that I did.
Q: You kind of look like the traditional rich-kid tennis player. Do you think people just assume you’ve had the more traditional tennis background?
RH: Unfortunately, in this country a lot of people they have a different mentality than me. Whenever I don’t have something I want to go work and get it, and the problem with a lot of people in the States is that whenever someone else has something they immediately resort to excuses as to why they don’t have it as opposed to doing something about it. So that’s when you hear people say, “Oh the reason he’s a good player is he had money or had a great coach or he was lucky. They don’t talk about all the hours that me and my dad spent on the court or all the times I would sit out there hitting serves after practice, putting myself in a position to succeed.
Q: Conventional wisdom is that Eastern Europeans often play to get out of Belarus or Estonia — they play to get out of their situations — and just fight, fight fight. Do you think your fight matches up with that ferocity?
RH: Absolutely. I think I can compete as well as anyone. I think I have as much heart as anyone on tour, and I want it as much or more than anyone on tour. Obviously those guys have a great competitive spirit for a reason, they’ve got their own motives to get out, and they have that sense of gratitude and appreciation for playing the sport that I was talking about and I think we need more of that in the States. I think we need kids that aren’t necessarily pleased with getting second place, third place, medals for 10th place. I’m a big believer in competing and that making yourself better.
Q: You’ve grown up in both Louisiana and Texas. Who do you root for? LSU or Texas?
RH: I root for the New Orleans Saints more than anything else.
Q: Drew Brees played some pretty serious tennis, even beat Andy as a kid. Ever talk to him?
RH: I’ve never met him, and he’s my favorite athlete in any sport. Hopefully, I have a chance to [meet] him one day. The way he handles himself, his professionalism, even watching things like when the lockout was happening and he got the Saints into Tulane with the workouts and such, he’s such an admirable athlete that I hope one day I can get a chance to get to know him.
Q: What did you take away from playing Roger Federer at Indian Wells earlier this year?
RH: Most important thing was my serve can dictate and I can hold against anyone, no matter what. I feel like if I play a good service game, if I hit my spots, I’m not going to get broken so there’s a sense of confidence in that. Roger, obviously, is notorious for having a huge forehand and there were some rallies where I was going forehand to forehand and winning them, so I remember being in rallies. Part of the problem with that was playing that first time against Roger, I was having that “Wow” [feeling] going through my head. But I remember being in rallies and hitting crosscourt forehands with him and going, “Wow, I’m literally taking the best forehand ever and just matching it stroke for stroke.” He was able to edge me out in the tiebreaker and obviously he loosened up and took the second set, but it was a confidence builder.
