{"id":2228,"date":"2017-05-17T12:59:59","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T16:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2017-05-17T13:13:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T17:13:00","slug":"resurgence-ryan-harrison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/05\/17\/resurgence-ryan-harrison\/","title":{"rendered":"The Resurgence of Ryan Harrison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Less than one year ago, in July 2016, the once promising young American <strong>Ryan Harrison<\/strong> was in the midst of a slump that had dropped him to outside the top 150.\u00a0 He had suffered\u00a0an incredibly difficult 2015 where he\u00a0did not win a single <strong>ATP<\/strong> tour level match after <strong>Indian Wells<\/strong> in March, and some of those struggles continued into the 2016 season.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Harrison drew the attention of American tennis fans in 2008 when he became only the\u00a0tenth player to win an ATP level match before the age of 16. Harrison battled on tour as a young up-and-comer, and after making semifinals in the hardcourt tournaments in <strong>Atlanta<\/strong> and <strong>Los Angeles<\/strong> in 2011, saw his ranking reach #79 in the world.<\/p>\n<p>He continued to succeed both on the ATP World Tour and <strong>ATP Challenger Tour<\/strong>, and was part of the 2012 <strong>United States Davis Cup<\/strong> team that reached the semifinals of the tournament.\u00a0A difficult stretch followed\u00a0in 2014 where he found himself not winning many matches on either tour, and these struggles continued into 2015 and 2016. He began to look like another promising American that would be forgotten after a few years in the spotlight.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/82620062\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/82620062?et=oQ0yKiDzRN5jW2QtlQoo2g&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=0tIkDp6UC83Evo5NaC1f4oFmbFNw-RBcJzcKrrYsnGk=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<h2>Work with Peter Lucassen<\/h2>\n<p>In the middle of 2016 during a string of losses that took their toll both on his ranking and\u00a0 his mental state, he hired <strong>Peter Lucassen<\/strong>, the former coach of fellow American <strong>Steve Johnson<\/strong>. With the new coach and a new approach to his game, he entered the American hard court swing by attempting to qualify for tournaments with a ranking of 158.<\/p>\n<p>After qualifying in <strong>Washington<\/strong>, he won his first two matches against top 60 players, before falling to Johnson in the round-of-16. He had another round-of-16 appearance in Toronto, beating the top-ranked American at the time, <strong>John Isner<\/strong>. He continued to ride this form\u00a0into the U.S. Open where he notched\u00a0the biggest win of his career, and only his second victory over a top 10 opponent, when he took out world number\u00a0#6 <strong>Milos Raonic<\/strong> in four sets in their second round match. This came\u00a0after having to go through three rounds of qualifying to enter the main draw of the tournament. He had an up-and-down finish to the season, failing to qualify for several tournaments yet picking up wins in others. Although he entered 2017 with a ranking of #90, he brought a new confidence that had never been seen before.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/635555332\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/635555332?et=p9gP8nfbR3R7LlD3yiroOA&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=VodLtEYWumqnxHvXSik95cOzr3EzMozIX2Gn1pJn2VM=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<h2>Magic in Memphis<\/h2>\n<p>After a few respectable yet unimpressive second round losses to begin the year, he won\u00a0the first Challenger tournament he entered, beating the heralded \u201cNext Gen\u201d American <strong>Taylor Fritz<\/strong> in straight sets in the final. After a week off, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/2017\/02\/24\/ryan-harrison-confidence-slump\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">everything finally came together for Harrison in the <strong>Memphis Open<\/strong><\/a>. The final year of the tournament before moving to <strong>New York<\/strong> saw many Americans enter including <strong>Sam Querrey<\/strong>, who Harrison crushed 6-3 6-1 in the second round, and <strong>Donald Young<\/strong>, who Harrison beat in the semifinal. He cruised to the title in his first ever tour level final, not dropping a single set or even being pushed to a tiebreak the entire tournament.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Today is a big day for me &#8211; A career high ranking of number 42 after 5 tough years. Thank you to everyone who has supported me! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NeverGiveUp?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NeverGiveUp<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/DAEw4Uf47e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/DAEw4Uf47e<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ryan Harrison (@ryanharrison92) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ryanharrison92\/status\/864078633207574529\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 15, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nThe 250 rankings points he earned from the Memphis\u00a0Open jumped his ranking into the top 50, allowing him opportunities to automatically enter tournaments including Indian Wells, <strong>Miami<\/strong>, and <strong>Monte Carlo<\/strong>. He received difficult draws in those tournaments and was unable to make deep runs, but he did earn a win over former <strong>U.S. Open<\/strong> champion <strong>Juan Martin del Potro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In less than a year\u00a0Ryan Harrison\u00a0has come from being almost irrelevant to earning a place among the top American tennis players. At the young age of 25, he has the\u00a0potential to continue to improve. If he keeps his mental focus and finds major success, he\u00a0could become a household name in American tennis.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/681436468\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 70.202020% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/681436468?et=1-B1e6clRCds9IfB0seXgg&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=qw-0ZOR9fx0d0qUDlINPVHDV5INcnVxf9BCoQiWo_C8=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"417\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Less than one year ago, in July 2016, the once promising young American Ryan Harrison was in the midst of a slump that had dropped him to outside the top 150.\u00a0 He had suffered\u00a0an incredibly difficult 2015 where he\u00a0did not win a single ATP tour level match after Indian Wells in March, and some of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1346,"featured_media":2231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9],"tags":[385,807,18,945,946,525,48,43],"class_list":["post-2228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","tag-2017-australian-open","tag-american-tennis","tag-atp","tag-memphis-open","tag-peter-lucassen","tag-ryan-harrison","tag-tennis","tag-us-open"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}