It looked like it all might be too much for Ryan Harrison when he double-faulted on the first two points of his fourth-round match with Roger Federer Wednesday night in Indian Wells. Before the clock on Stadium 1 had even struck 0:01, he was down love-40.
When the world No. 2 held serve comfortably to 2-0 it all made sense—the maestro would give a lesson to the 18-year-old upstart. Maybe Federer started to think that as well, especially after he coasted to a 4-2 lead.
But in the seventh game, unforced errors cascaded into Federer’s game. At 30-15, with Harrison serving, Federer missed a sizeable opening by hitting a down-the-line backhand pass long. Two points later, a simple forehand pass went long. And on the very next point, another wide-open forehand was somehow contrived and plopped wide.
You have to wonder what Federer is thinking during these passages of remarkable ineptitude. He often pauses for the briefest seconds after these indignities—is the ghost of George Bastl is suddenly inhabiting his body? But keeping things in perspective, archrival Rafael Nadal also had stretches of blatantly sub-par play during a sketchy 7-5, 6-4 win over Somdev Devvarman, in a match that preceded Federer-Harrison on Stadium 1.
The ending of the first set was more of the same: Federer struggled to find his game and lost his serve at 5-4 and 6-5, with a double-fault in both games, to send the set to a tiebreak. After the players exchanged mini-breaks on the two first points, the tiebreak went on serve until Harrison badly mishit a forehand to give Federer a lead at 5-3. At 5-4, Federer rediscovered his touch, hitting a forehand drop shot winner and then a service winner to wrap up the tiebreak, and the set in 54 minutes.
The second set was more predictable as Federer earned a lead in seventh game, his forehand doing most of the damage before a backhand unforced error by Harrison gave him the decisive break of serve at love. The final score was 7-6 (4), 6-3.
Afterward, Federer talked about the beginning of the match being misleading because Harrison was obviously nervous. As for his patchy play in the opening set, he attributed it partly to “tricky conditions—windy and a night session,” after playing his first two matches against Igor Andreev and Juan Ignacio Chela during the daytime.
Harrison deserves a measure of credit, too. Once he got over his early nerves, he played hyper-aggressively, not backing down from the legend on the other side of the net. Seated beside the esteemed Steve Tignor, the wordsmith came up with a new term to describe Harrison’s tactic of hitting over the two-handed backhand on the service return and charging to the net. Chip-and-charge doesn’t work if you’re not hitting under the ball, so Tignor dubbed it a “drive and charge.”
A lot of things the American did tested Federer, but the No. 2 came through unscathed and will face his Swiss compatriot and doubles partner this week, Stanislas Wawrinka, for the ninth time in the quarters. They team up on Thursday; on Friday, Federer will go for his sixth win in a row and eighth overall against Stan in singles play.
—Tom Tebbutt