Coming into the US Open, few people had Ryan Harrison generating any inroads in the draw. Plenty of people saw this quarter as an inevitable Nadal vs Raonic showdown. The tables were turned Wednesday, however, as he took out Wimbledon finalist and the #5 seed Milos Raonic.
The American had a terrific junior career and high expectations were placed on him as he entered the pro tour. He seemed to be fulfilling them early on with a run to the fourth round of Indian Wells in 2011. Coincidently, he defeated Raonic to get there, where he would fall to Roger Federer in straight sets.
Nevertheless, he struggled to make an impact afterwards. Bad draws played a role but he couldn’t even notch a single top 10 win in the years to come. Inconsistency and struggles plunged him well out of the top 100 by 2014, where he was relegated to playing Challengers.
Harrison seemed to be coming back on track at the beginning of 2015 where he scored the first top 10 win of his career by beating Grigor Dimitrov in Acapulco. David Ferrer would end his run in the semifinals. Nonetheless, his inconsistency resumed.
Repeating the magic that got him to the semis a year before, he defeated former US Open champion Marin Cilic at the same tournament this year. But as with the year before, he stagnated afterwardswithout any memorable progress.
Harrison’s Big Chance
With that in mind, Raonic was the huge favorite coming into this match. It was only as the match progressed where the Canadian did not look physically up to the task. He told the press that it was due to cramps.
“A little bit of stress,” Raonic said. “I don’t think hydration was an issue. I think I always take that precaution. Probably just nerves and stress, a mental sort of over-exuberance rather than — probably more than it should.”
Raonic won the first set in a tiebreaker after being down an early break. Harrison’s early break, however, gave him the confidence to compete in this match.
“I just was really going to focus hard on taking care of my service games as much as possible,” Harrison said. “Then the opportunities to break him are kind of few and far between when you get ’em. Whenever they did come, I was trying to play as composed and aggressively as I could.”
Raonic’s downfall
As Harrison’s confidence grew, so did Raonic’s cramps.
Trailing 2-5, Raonic fought off numerous set points in which he managed to level the set. However, Harrison took advantage of his ailing opponent to break serve to take the set 7-5.
His cramping proceeded into the third set where his troubles only got worse.
“I couldn’t switch grips from one point to the next,” he said. “There were a few points where I would hold the racquet with my left and trying to stretch out my right hand in between shots, and that’s not going to work.”
The crowd could notice this in the third set, in which he seemed to be mistiming even the simplest of rally shots, with his trademark serve even losing some of its sting. He held a break in the set with points for a double break but could not physically handle the task. Harrison claimed the third set with an identical scoreline to the second.
By the fourth set, Raonic had nothing to offer, winning only one game.
Looking forward
“It’s exciting to have a big win like this at a Slam,” Harrison said about his big win. “I’m trying to approach it, you know, just like I would any other match right now. I’m trying to stay in the moment, go through my routines tomorrow, I guess the rest of tonight, like I would any other match.”
Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus will be his next opponent. The former Australian Open finalist took out Benoit Paire in four sets earlier Wednesday.
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(All quotes can be found on usopen.org)
