By winning his first round match at the BNP Paribas Open with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Taylor Dent, Ryan Harrison became the first 17-year-old to win a main draw match in Indian Wells since Rafael Nadal in 2004. Harrison is also just the fifth player age 17 or younger to win a main draw match in the desert, along with Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang and Nadal.
The all-courter will face 20th seed Ivan Ljubicic in the next round and believes he’s been improving with every match. He’s developed a close relationship with Andy Roddick, who in a good-natured way, occasionally hazes him. After losing a bet to Roddick at the 2010 Australian Open, Harrison had to go into the players lounge and get Roddick a coffee wearing only a towel.
Roddick also once used Harrison as practice partner for a U.S. Open match against Federer when Harrison was just 14, and then the Texan had to play a tiebreaker against Andy’s older bother John with $50 on the line and Andy in the umpire’s chair. “That was a lot of cheeseburgers to me,” joked Harrison, who barely lost the breaker..—Matthew Cronin