Is Shreveport native Ryan Harrison the next American tennis star?
It's a question posed in today's New York Times in a story about how the 18-year-old tennis prodigy began his first U.S. Open by serving up an upset of 15th-seeded Ivan Ljubicic. Harrison needed only four sets to secure the match. As the Times notes, the phenom is the first American male teenager to beat a top 20 player in a Grand Slam event since Andy Roddick, then 19, beat Alex Corretja at Wimbledon in 2001.
The son of tennis coach Pat Harrison, Ryan began playing tennis at the age of 2. He is currently ranked 220th in the world, but should catapult into the top 200 after his U.S. Open showing. Harrison has now advanced to the second round of the tournament, where he will meet 36th-ranked Sergiy Stakhovsky on Friday. Read the full Times article here.