Young American Harrison gives fans something to cheer about

Maximum thrills and a touch of American tennis optimism materialized in an unexpected corner of the U.S. Open Friday. On the Grandstand Court, in a second-round match featuring two fellows through to the Open's second round for the first time in their careers, a perfect storm of varied playing styles and whiplash momentum mesmerized an overflow crowd for five fun-filled sets.

That 24-year-old Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky at last prevailed against 18-year-old Southerner Ryan Harrison - after Harrison held three match points in the fifth-set tiebreak before going down, 6-3, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6) - hardly ruined the experience.

Even for Harrison, playing just the third major singles match of his career and demonstrating nerve and craftsmanship.

"It was incredibly fun," Harrison said. "There were some balls that I ran down and was able to scoop up and get back in the point, win some points, just because of the energy and the electricity that I was feeling."

A good many more than the Grandstand capacity of 6,106 witnessed the slug-it-out tango; fans were seated in aisles, standing on the overhead walkway connecting the Grandstand to Louis Armstrong Stadium, peering from the top row of Armstrong. And, for 4 hours, 13 minutes, Stakhovsky and Harrison were giving them what they wanted.

Lead swings. Crisp ground strokes. Serve-and-volley attacks. Athletic forays. A brief stoppage of play because of light drizzle brought boos.

"I'm just trying to win every point or, you know, sometimes put a little show in there," Stakhovsky said. "But I'm trying to enjoy it. I'm just trying at the moment not to be angry at myself if I'm losing."

He was losing 2-0 in the first set, then winning 5-2, setting the up-and-down pattern for the match. Both men kept storming the net - Stakhovsky 91 times because that is his style; Harrison 83 times as a specific strategy. "The guy had a one-handed backhand and was chipping a lot of them," Harrison said.

Harrison was down 0-40 and 1-3 in the fifth set but saved three break points and quickly scratched his way back to 3-3, aided by two missed volleys by Stakhovsky in the sixth game. Into the tiebreak, more of the same: Harrison fell behind 1-3, but his running forehand pass clipped off the racket of the diving Stakhovsky to bring Harrison back to 3-3. He had the crowd chanting, "Let's go, Ryan."

A Stakhovsky double fault, a Harrison service winner and netted Stakhovsky backhand gave Harrison his first match point at 6-3. But Stakhovsky put away an overhead, rattled a service winner off Harrison's backhand and won a long rally. A Harrison double fault and Stakhovsky's forehand volley winner at last brought the curtain down on the entertainment.

The charged atmosphere "was nice," Stakhovsky said with a wry grin, "except that 99.9 percent of the people were against me."

He was asked what potential he saw in the young Yank, raised in Louisiana and Texas, and a product of two tennis academies, who is now based in Florida and coached by his father, a former college (and briefly) pro player.

"To do good to him," Stakhovsky said, "I'm not gonna say any good of him. Because usually, when the young guys are coming up and they have all this publicity and everybody saying they're gonna be, they're gonna be, they're gonna be, and in the end they're just losing it. So I would say he's got a huge amount of work to do. Huge. Like hours and hours of practice."