Tennis Update: Promising start for Ryan Harrison
On Wednesday night, Ryan Harrison just surprised everyone when he defeated No. 15 seed Ivan Ljubicic by 6-3, 6-7, 6-4 in a match on court 11 at U.S. Open 2010.
This is his first Grand Slam singles victory, and it connected him to America’s best player, Andy Roddick. Harrison is the first American who beat a top 20 seed in a Grand Slam event. Before him, it was Andy Roddick, who defeated No.11 Alex Corretja here in the third round at the age of 19.
"Roddick has been helping me since I was 15, 16 years old," Harrison said later. "Every time I see him, he's always been extremely helpful; and really talked to me a lot about some of the things he experienced when he was first coming up."
The match got interesting when Ljubicic broke him to level the fourth set but the young smart boy broke back at love. Till the end of 3 hour and 7 minute match, Harrison was full of energy and bouncing around the court.
Harrison told the interviewer that he is working hard on his game and this week is a good example. He was defeated in the finals of the USTA’s and was forced to qualify by winning three matches.
"There's so much to like about this young man," said Martina Navratilova, who broadcast the match on Tennis Channel. "Kudos all around to Ryan Harrison. He served great, mixed it up. He's got a complete game. He came of age here today."
Two years back, Harrison became the third youngest player to win an ATP-Level match since 1990. At the age of just 15 years, he defeated Pablo Cuevas in Houstan. The two players who defeated Pablo Cuevas at this graph are Richard Gasquet and Rafael Nadal.
More surprisingly all the best players like Andy Roddick, Pete Sampras, Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi lost in the first matches at the U.S. Open and when the next ATP tour rankings come out, this small boy will stand as the youngest player in the top 200.
"To win on this stage here and to take out a top-20 player in the world is the biggest win of my career," he said. "I've always believed in myself. I'm extremely excited and really pleased with what happened."
Just to underline how far Harrison has come, we have to go a little back where he lost to Janko Tipsarevic in the straight sets in the Australian Open. Before that, he played with other Americans to decide who will receive America’s wild card entry into the Australian Open 2010, where he defeated Alex Kuznetsova and Donald young. He was then defeated by Ljubicic at Indian Wells in straight sets. He also received wild card entry at 2010 SAP Open, where he fell to Denis Istomin in the very first round. Afterwards Harrison went through qualifying 2010 Delray Beach International Tennis Championships, before losing to Ernest Gulbis.
Harrison also received wild card entry at 2010 BNP Paribas Open, where he defeated Taylor Dentrin but unfortunately lost to Ivan Ljubicic. Afterwards he went for 2010 Sony Ericsson Open, where he lost to Michael Llodra in the first round.
Harrison played other tournaments as well without any major results. This year he entered French Open after qualifying for the tournament, where he lost to Ryan Sweeting. Not showing any progress since Australian Open, he decided to play 2010 Hall of Fame Tennis Championship, where he defeated sixth seeded Karol Beck before defeating Denis Kudla. Soon after the tournament, his ranking was raised and currently he ranked 222 in the world but according to the experts, he will be in top 200 very soon after the U.S. Open tournament.
According to the most of the experts, Ryan Harrison looks like the next big player in American Tennis. He will be facing Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky in his next round. Hopefully this young poster boy lives to the expectations of his Nation and all those people who love to watch him playing and will come out with major results.
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