The Lloyd Harris US Open run ended on Court 17 on Wednesday night, and Stefanos Tsitsipas needed four sets, two tiebreaks and a single break of serve in the fourth to end it. 6-7(1), 6-3, 7-6(4), 6-4 to the Greek.
Read the ranking column first, then read the scoreline. Harris arrived at No. 139 in the world, three rounds of qualifying behind him. Tsitsipas sits at 53 and was inside the top three not long ago.
Harris took the first set 7-1 in the tiebreak.
That is not the scoreline of a qualifier hanging on for as long as he can. He got the minibreak at 3-1 and then took the set away in a handful of points, against a man who had gone four sets and two hours 54 minutes to beat Cincinnati champion Arthur Fils on Monday.
Tsitsipas answered in the second, breaking twice to level it. Then came the set the match turned on.
Another tiebreak in the third, and Tsitsipas won it 7-4. Win that one and Harris leads two sets to one, with a tiring opponent and a night crowd. Lose it and you are serving to stay in the tournament inside 40 minutes, which is exactly what happened when the break came in the ninth game of the fourth.
The Lloyd Harris US Open numbers
Thirteen aces for Harris against 15 for Tsitsipas. Both men are 6’4″, and neither serve was doing much for the returner.
Harris held 17 of his 22 service games. Tsitsipas held 19 of 21. That is the entire match in two lines — five breaks against two, spread across three hours of tennis where almost nothing else separated them.
He also converted twice on return, which against this opponent on a hard court is more than most seeds manage. The problem was never the level. It was that he needed one more point in a tiebreak he had already fought his way into.
“A qualifier ranked 139 took the first set off a former world number three and lost the match by two points in tiebreaks. Nobody should be filing that under bad news!” – 🎙️Jay
Where it leaves him
Harris has now played five matches at this tournament, three of them just to get into the main draw. He came through all of that without dropping a set until Wednesday, and then took the opening set off the highest-ranked man he has faced in two years.
The 2021 quarter-final remains the benchmark, and it is still the run every South African brings up first. But 2021 was a Harris ranked inside the top 50 and moving upward. This one came from the qualifying draw with a body that has spent four years being interrupted.
Tsitsipas moves on to face Jiri Lehecka in the third round, a head-to-head sitting level at 2-2. Reaching the last 32 already matches his best result at Flushing Meadows, which says something about the standard Harris was holding to for three hours.
South African interest in the men’s singles is done for the fortnight. What is not done is Harris, who leaves New York with ranking points, a scalp in the first round, and the clearest evidence in years that the level is still in there.
