Ryan Harrison turned 19 a little more than a month ago, but that’s his driver’s license and pub crawl age.
I’ll have to give him closer to 25 in tennis years, because this American teenager, who has so much upside, so much commitment and all the patience it requires to be great, looked just that experienced and comfortable on a rain-delayed Day 4 at Wimbledon.
What happens tomorrow, when Ryan and No. 6 ranked David Ferrer resume their match, suspended on Court 2 right on 9 p.m., is a 50-50 issue.
Harrison is up, tenuously, at 7-6 (6), 1-6, 6-4, 2-4 and he’ll be serving to stay just one break down in the fourth when they get back on court.
Probably, Ferrer sends it to a fifth, where experience becomes a high asset, but after what Harrison showed Thursday, I doubt he’ll be lacking in confidence or exhibiting nerves if they have to go the distance.
There is so much to like about this young man and his maturity is way up there.
He’s had some testy moments on court in the past, but when you look at the broader picture with Ryan, this is anything but a petulant young player.
For all but about five seconds of this match, which has consumed 2 hours and 44 minutes thus far, he was the very paradigm of composure. He went about his business for most of this match without any of those Novak Djokovic grimaces or any of those overdone fist pumps. About the only gesture you got out of Harrison was a finger pointed to a ball kid to request his towel.
With most 19-year-olds, you get a lot of impetuous play, and certainly, even on grass, little David Ferrer, with his retrieving and defense, can lure you into going for more than is prudent. But Harrison would not be lured.
He refused to play risky ball, even when he had good, long looks at forehands. He went to the corners, but he didn’t go to the lines. He hit with pace and he hit deep. He kept himself in the points and sent a message to Ferrer that I can hit with you all afternoon and it’s you who is going to have to play chancy tennis.
That’s maturity, Maybe that doesn’t work against a big hitter like Nadal or Del Potro, but it’s the right tactic against Ferrer on grass and it has put Harrison in position to record the biggest win of his young career.
Ferrer is among the best returners on the ATP tour, and he’s had 21 break point opportunities in this match. But Ryan has steeled himself in crisis and defended 16 of them, and he’s done it a lot of the time with an astonishingly tough second serve for someone this young.
He’s averaging 121 mph on his firsts and 108 on his seconds. The speed on those second serves is just south of Andy Roddick territory.
Certainly the opening set was a major key. Down 4-6 in the tiebreak, Harrison won four points in a row and the last two were just scintillating. With Ferrer serving at 6-6, Harrison took the second serve early off the backhand side, drove it down the middle to reduce Ferrer’s angles and came to net behind it, knocking off the volley for 7-6.
He then wrapped the first set with a 114 mph second serve to the deep corner of the ad court. That’s simply a high-confidence serve in a critical situation.
The front row on Court 2 is separated from the grass by a short wall and three times in this match Harrison was over the wall chasing down shots, the first a running forehand down-the-line winner at full stretch that got the audience on its feet.
He was run off badly in set two, but broke in the third to go up 3-2 when Ferrer hit an easy overhead long at love-40. This was Harrison’s most consistent set with 81 percent first serves in and a 21-5 edge on all service points.
In the fourth, he was broken at 0-1 after a very bad slip on the moist grass as he came in for a short ball at deuce. His left foot gave out as he came forward and he lost his chance for an ad. He then double-faulted, got briefly angry with himself, and 20 minutes later, with Harrison ready to serve at 2-4, Ferrer petitioned the chair umpire to call it off because of bad light.
If Ryan, currently at No. 122, wins this match, he’ll have accumulated 106 ranking points, enough to take him into the top-100 for the first time, and, even better, draws No. 125 Karol Beck of Slovakia in the third round — certainly a winnable match.
But first things first. Friday on Court 2 with the very experienced David Ferrer. For Harrison, he came to Wimbledon having played only eight professional matches on grass, three in the bush leagues (Challengers).
He’s adapted well here at Wimbledon. He’s adapted as if he’s well beyond his 19 years.