TRANSCRIPT: Ryan Harrison

Written by: Staff on 6th April 2012

TRANSCRIPT: Ryan Harrison

Ryan Harrison of USA returns the ball during his men's singles first round match against Andy Murray of Britain on the second day of the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 17 January 2012. EPA/MAST IRHAM |

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How can you analyze this defeat?

RYAN HARRISON: You know, it was a really fun, exciting match. I felt like, especially later, like the last two sets, we both raised our level of play.

I knew that I was going to have to pick it up after the second set in order to compete with him and to make it a battle. I felt like I did that. There were some really close games early in the fourth set that went his way. He didn’t give me any real chance to break him back in the fourth.

Q. We felt a lot of frustrations for both of you. Do you believe Jo was able to deal with the frustrations better than you did?

RYAN HARRISON: I think that obviously in a Davis Cup match, it’s going to be a very high intensity environment. We both have frustrations; we both had excitement.

I felt like I showed a lot of positive energy out there as well, especially later in the match. So did he. He got fired up when he played good points, too.

I think it went both ways.

Q. How did you experience emotionally this first time in a live rubber in a Davis Cup match?

RYAN HARRISON: I had a lot of fun. I wanted to keep going. I was disappointed for it to end. It’s a great experience to represent your country, playing in an environment where you’re representing something greater than yourself. I loved it. It was a great experience.

Q. What was the plan to get back in the game with Jim?

RYAN HARRISON: We both felt in the second set he mentioned, I agreed with him that my balls were landing a little bit short. He started to play the match on his terms.

He just said, Look, even if you miss a couple balls, if you start playing the right way, more aggressively, you’re going to put some more pressure on him and you’re going to get some errors ultimately. We wanted to be a little more aggressive on second serve returns, too, kind of put some pressure on his first serve. We were able to do that to a T. That’s why I broke him in the third set.

Obviously in the fourth set, I think he must have served 70%, I don’t know the exact stat, I haven’t seen it, but he made a lot of first serves, that made it very difficult for me to get looks.

Q. It seemed you played very well the entire match. Do you think it just sort of turned on his ability to convert a few more breakpoints?

RYAN HARRISON: I think one thing I didn’t do very well is I didn’t play as aggressively on some of the breakpoints as I would have liked to, and he did.

It’s a fractional match, but the fractions go his way whenever he does the right things. Even though we both missed some balls and both played some bad points at times, whenever he got breakpoint, he big points, he made me play. That was why it went to his favor early, and to my favor in the third because I did that better than he did.

The fourth set, I felt like we were at a high intensity level, high level. He was, unfortunately, able to play a little better than me at the end.

Q. Were you frustrated by the double faults? Any reason for them?

RYAN HARRISON: I never double fault that much, which is funny. My second serve is usually one of my biggest weapons. You’re going to have days that things don’t go your way. I have days when my backhand is better than my forehand, which is not my norm, but it happens. It’s just something I had to deal with.

The sun, it was against me on that side, and the wind was also against me, which was causing just a little bit of differences with my toss and also with the way I was trying to hit.

I started thinking about it after a few times, which is never a good thing. Obviously, I was not happy with it. But I did get better with it toward the end of the match.

Q. What did Jim say to you after the match?

RYAN HARRISON: Well, we haven’t spoken too much in depth about it just because it’s a team event and I’m representing USA, which ultimately the goal for us is to win as a team.

He said, Good fight, you competed well. Let’s get behind John now and we’ll talk about the X’s and O’s later. As of right now, we’re all supporting John.

I’m excited to get done with my rehab and all my I guess maintenance work so I can get out there and watch him.

Q. When Jim speaks to you during a game, does it fire you up, is he trying to calm you down? What’s his approach?

RYAN HARRISON: Well, I guess it’s not really calming me down, it’s not really firing me up. I’m fired up. I play well when I’m fired up. It’s more channeling energy toward what we want to do.

A lot of it is for me just making sure that I play the right style that is going to be successful. I sometimes have a tendency to play a little more passive as opposed to aggressive. That’s not the way I need to play. So that was a lot of our conversation.

Q. After this match, how would you rate Jim as a Davis Cup captain?

RYAN HARRISON: Number one. He’s my captain. I can’t say number one because I had a lot of fun with Patrick McEnroe, as well. He had a great career. I know Tom Gullikson, a lot of other captains that are supporting their teams.

For me, he’s the only thing I ever experienced. He supported me in every way that he could. We had a great communication and great relationship on the court. It’s nice to see everything. He sees the game similar to the way I do. It’s not like he says something, I say, Nah, I don’t agree with that. We both see things similar. Whenever he tells me something, it’s kind of like light bulb. There we go.

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