Farmer Tennis Classic – Harrison, Berankis, Kosakowski

Written by: Tennischiro on 27th July 2011

Farmer Tennis Classic - Harrison, Berankis, Kosakowski |

Okay, emotionally I was ahead. I got pulled into rooting for Kosakowski even though he lost the first set, but he came through with a great finish. Now on this next match, I can be more unbiased. I have heard a little bit about Ryan Harrison, but I haven’t really seen him play more than a few points. He’s just broken into the top 100 with his semifinal finish last week in Atlanta and he is the new young American “hope”. He earned that mantle beating Ivan Ljubicic in the first round of the US Open last year as an 18-year-old. Ryan plays a complete game, likes to volley and considers grass to be his best surface.

Ryan’s opponent today is the number one player in Lithuania, Richard Berankis. (How is it that there are suddenly so many players from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia? Or does it just seem that way because there were none? I’m 1/8th Lithiuanian and I used to feel like the second best Lithuanian player. We, of course, didn’t know any of them on this side of the Iron Curtain. But the best was clearly, the Lithuanian Lion, Vitas Gerulaitis. We used to play $50/corner doubles at Stadium Tennis Center after midnight because the courts were cheap. He was only 17, but boy did he clean our clocks! He was using us to finance his trips to Studio 54. Vitas was from Queens, but his dad had emigrated from Lithuania and Vitas was certainly the best Lithuanian tennis player ever.) Robert’s a former world number one junior and US Open Junior champion (2007). These two have played 4 times in qualis and lower level events, and Berankis won all of those. More interestingly, they both train at Bollettieri’s and have residences in Bradenton, FL So they probably are regular practice partners.

The match gets started and after trading a couple of early breaks proceeds to 5/5 in the first set. Now I’m looking for what kind of mettle young Harrison can show us as he serves the 11th game. He proceeds to put in 4 first serves including aces on the 3rd and 4th points. Pretty impressive. Berankis doesn’t do as well as he misses 3 of his first 6 first serves, but he makes a brilliant shot over Harrison’s head at 30/40 to save set point. He faces another break point, but Ryan let’s him off the hook with a missed forehand. Finally, Berankis makes a couple of first serves and we are into the tie-breaker. But Harrison is making a few more errors.

In the tie-breaker, the first-serve table is turned as, despite starting off with a double fault after an unforced forehand error on the first point, Berankis makes his next four first serves and takes two of Harrison’s serve points by getting to the net for a 6-4 lead in the tie-breaker. Berankis gets a bit of a break when he hits a let cord that draws a backhand error from Harrison for the set.

At this point, I was a little concerned for Harrison. Berankis looked the solider of the two striking the ball and he had made the decisive moves to finish the points at the net at crunch time. And Harrison had made just 2/5 first serves in the tie-breaker.

So the second set proceeded to the later stages, again with the trade of a couple of breaks. Ryan served at 4-5. Berankis took the first point drawing an error from Harrison with an aggressive forehand, but Ryan came right back after Berankis missed a return at 0-15, with a forehand winner for 30-15 and a forced forehand error to get to 40-15. It was good to see Harrison playing aggressively when the chips were down, trying to take his fate into his own hands. He didn’t want to let his neighbor from Bradenton have another break point. He finished off the game with a forehand winner behind Berankis as the Lithuanian slipped to the court.

Now it was the critical time for Berankis to hold serve at 5-5. He didn’t know how critical it was because Harrison would go on to allow him no more points on the American’s serve in the second set and just 2 points against his service in the third. But the key was unforced errors. Harrison put the ball in play and Berankis gave him 2 unforced errors and 1 forced error to get down 30/40. He saved that set point as Harrison made a forehand unforced error. Then Berankis ended the game with a missed backhand volley and a double fault.

Harrison stepped up to serve the 6-5 game and simply made no mistakes. He put in one first serve on the second point and made a forehand winner for 30-0. But the other three points were all errors off the Lithuanian’s racket.

Sometimes the quality of play was stellar. These two seemed to be able to do everything. Great composure. Great athleticism. They were both attacking when the opportunity arose. When I watches my student play last Sunday, I was very frustrated. Sometimes he seemed to be able to do everything, but then, for no apparent reason, the unforced errors would come. Well, I probably shouldn’t be so hard on Doyeob if the same thing can happen to someone who has been the number one junior in the world and has been playing the world tour for almost as long as Doyeob has been playing tennis. But if I am Berankis’s coach, I probably am really pulling my hair out. I wonder how much the fact that Berankis and Harrison are both from Bollettieri’s and probably play together and probably are friends has to do with the high incidence of unforced errors.

I moved off to get into position for the Muller/Johnson match that had been switched to the Stadium Court, but I kept an eye on the progression of the match from the south railing. Harrison played a great third set allowing Berankis just the two points I mentioned earlier off serve as he got 67% of his first serves in. Berankis didn’t fall apart, but he allowed Harrison a break chance at 2-2 and Ryan converted on the first try. From a distance, Berankis seemed a bit disheartened, perhaps because he was having such a hard time with Harrison’s serve. He held once more to get to 4-3 down, but dropped his serve again on the second break point of the set at 5-3.

You have to give the young American credit. He stayed tough on the important points. He is riding a wave of confidence after doing so well in Atlanta last week and then winning a tough match yesterday. Today he faces a veteran in Michael Russel who is riding his own confidence train after a decisive 3 set victory over Dimitri Tursonov, 6-7, 6-0, 6-2. Surely, Russell will penalize the young man from Shreveport if he makes the same kind of mistakes he made the first two sets against Berankis.

For Berankis, I hope it is just a hiccup. Again, another player who looks so tough. Man, there are a lot of good guys out on the tour now. He seems very sound to me. His career high ranking was 73 and I think we will see him in the top 100 again before long.

I still owe you a report on the Johnson/Muller match, but I have to get over to the courts and watch today’s action. I’ll bring you my thoughts on that match a little later. Gotta go!

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