Ryan Harrison needed a special exemption to get into the Los Angeles event.  He did it on the basis of his semifinal appearance last week in Atlanta.  This achievement put him into the top 100.

Harrison started off LA by playing one of the up-and-comers, Richard Berankis.  Berankis is usually not mentioned with the other 4 (Harrison, Tomic, Raonic, and Dimitrov) partly, one imagines, due to his lack of good wins.  Although Berankis was a highly ranked junior, he is not particularly tall. It is a rarity to have someone like David Ferrer who plays top ten tennis but is about 5’9″ in height.

Harrison needed 3 sets to beat Berankis.  In his next match, he took on veteran Michael Russell.  Russell’s notable achievement was a match where he almost beat Gustavo Kuerten at the French Open.  He didn’t.  Guga drew a heart on the court and blew kisses.

That was nearly a decade ago.  Russell is a solid veteran, but if Harrison wants to be that next player, the next Roddick or the next Fish, and that’s a pretty high ambition–it’s too much to ask he be the next Sampras, then he eventually has to beat players like Russell.  A few weeks ago, he lost early to Arnaud Clement, a player whose career was more accomplished than Russell.  This match wasn’t even close.  Even if Clement is a veteran, he is also playing Challengers.  It’s the kind of player Harrison needs to beat.

The Russell match was fairly straight forward, won in straight sets.

Harrison then played Yen-Hsun (Rendy) Lu.  Lu is a player that is much like Harrison was.  Working hard.  Trying to get up the ranks.  His rank floated around 100 for some time.  His big breakthrough was reaching the quarters of Wimbledon last year.  He’s done well to keep his rank reasonable.  Harrison is expecting to be better than Lu, so again, winning here would be useful to his career.  It took three sets to do this, but Harrison again came through today.

Gilles Muller, who played well last week in Atlanta, was Mardy Fish’s first opponent.  He got a bye since he was seeded.  Fish needed a tiebreak to beat Muller in the first set, but the second set was much easier, a 6-1 win.

Today, Fish played Kunitsyn.  Kunitsyn has beaten Fish twice, but the two haven’t met since 2008.  One match was on clay, and the other Fish retired.  This time, it was different.  There were 5 breaks of serve to start the match, but eventually Fish began to hold serve and took the first set, 6-2.  The second set was closer, 6-4.

Currently, Bellucci is playing Bogomolov who has himself been playing well.  Bellucci has won the first set, 6-1.  The match people want to see is del Potro taking on Gulbis.  Gulbis has been relatively lucky.  He beat Malisse in the first round, a good win, but played a wildcard to win his second match.  He’s unlikely to bother del Potro much unless he’s hit a lucky streak.