At twenty-four Ryan Harrison has finally won his first ATP title, after winning the 2017 Memphis Open. It feels a little strange to use the term “finally” when referring to a twenty-four year-old, but Harrison’s road to this title has certainly been a long and unique one.
At 15 years eleven months, and seven days old, Ryan Harrison joined the tennis elite at the 2008 US Clay Court Championships in Houston by defeating Pablo Cuevas in straight sets. It was thought by many that he would replace the Roddick-Fish-Blake generation, which in turn had replaced the Agassi-Sampras-Courier generation. American tennis was used to having a star, or stars, and the Bollettieri Academy (now IMG Academy) product Harrison looked just that.
Winning a pro match before turning sixteen was a big deal, and just two other players had achieved it in recent times. The two who had achieved such early success where Richard Gasquet and Rafael Nadal, both current or former Top Ten players. Harrison was expected to join these stars and become a household name in the tennis community.
His luck in Grand Slam draws was admittedly poor early in his career, drawing the likes of Robin Soderling in the first round of the 2011 French Open at the height of the Swede’s powers, and taking a set. Over the next seven slams Harrison met supremely talented players in the first or second rounds including David Ferrer, taking the Spaniard to five sets at Wimbledon, Marin Cilic, Andy Murray, Gilles Simon, Novak Djokovic (twice) and Juan Martin del Potro.
Yet despite the poor slam draw luck Harrison apperared to be on course for a slow but steady ascension. He broke the Top 100, and later the Top 50, earning a place in the London 2012 Olympics, but losing to Santiago Giraldo.
Yet Harrison’s troubles began soon after, as his ranking plummeted from a respectable Top 100 ranking to near 200 by the late stages of 2014. Players had begun to avoid the big forehand and tried to prey on the more susceptible backhand and letting Harrison’s infamous temper do the job for them.
Yet Harrison’s former coach ,Scott McCain, asserted back in 2011 that Harrison’s temper was actually part on his game, explaining the results of a experiment the duo had tried with Harrison controlling himself leading to a thrashing. McCain in 2011 “We’ve got to let Ryan be Ryan, but we have to start realizing there might be another way aside from smashing your racket.”
Harrison, now twenty-four, and somewhat removed from the pressures of being America’s next big hope is ironically jointly the most successful American in 2017, with only Jack Sock a fellow American with an ATP title this season. Harrison is now in the early-middle stages of his career, and the likes of Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe, Jared Donaldson, and Reilly Opelka are now sharing the burden of an expectant nation. This has allowed Harrison to fly under the radar, and focus on making improvements to his game and psyche. Now working with a team that includes Brad Gilbert, former player and coach to Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick, Andy Murray, Kei Nishikori, and Sam Querrey, Harrison is now sitting at his career high-ranking of No.43, nearly five years after he first achieved it.
The signs were there in 2016 that Harrison, finally after a number of years in wilderness, was on his way back to or even beyond his previous best. He admitted to some soul-searching, after coming close to leaving the game if things did not work out after a hard qualifying exit to Bjorn Fratangelo at Wimbledon, but good things were just around the corner.
He reached the round of 16 in Washington, defeating Viktor Troicki. He also reached the third round of the Canadian Masters, defeating Isner, and the third round of the US Open, defeating a cramping Milos Raonic.
His 2017 form is strong with two titles to date, one at the Challenger level, the other his first ATP title in Memphis. Since his second round defeat to Tomas Berdych at the Australian Open, Harrison has gone on a tear, winning ten straight matches without dropping a set. His title win in Memphis saw him beat five Top 100 players including Sam Querrey and Nikoloz Basilashvili, who just the week before had defeated Dominic Thiem, without the need for even a tiebreak in any match.
The outbursts are still there, but they are less frequent and there is a distinct change in their nature. Where in the past a young, volatile Harrison might have used his voice to berate line judges or umpires, or channel frustrations into smashing balls or rackets, he uses them more effectively. Like World No. 1 Andy Murray, it seems more an internal dialogue now that he uses to encourage himself, to provide that competitive steel that is such a feature of his game.
In a player where his work ethic and desire to win cannot be contested (he has been known to be violently ill after particularly hard losses), such a subtle change where most other ingredients to make a very good Top 100 player were already present could prove a master-stroke.
Harrison’s surge bears striking similarities to David Goffin, who fell dramatically before a stunning Challenger and Tour run brought him back to the top in 2014. He played as alternate at the ATP World Tour Finals at the end of last season, and is a Grand Slam quarter-finalist. It is not out of the realms of possibility for Harrison to emulate Goffin and reach the Top Ten if he can remain as consistent as his play this season has demonstrated.
