South Africa’s Lloyd Harris was brave in his second round loss to top ranked American world No 4 Taylor Fritz on the Louis Armstrong Stadium court on Wednesday.
Fritz won in four sets 4-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2, 6-4 in a match that lasted 3 hours and 27 minutes.
Tough nut to crack
Early in the first set, it looked like Fritz’s serve was going to be a very tough nut to crack for Harris.
In Fritz’s first two service games, Harris was only able to win one point. Things improved during Fritz’s third service game when Harris won two points!
Lloyd Harris, who jumped from 353rd to 243rd in the world despite his defeat, was able to hold serve up until this point.
It was game seven when Harris was able to finally crack Fritz’s serve, to take a 4-3 lead. Harris was then able to hold serve twice to take the first set 6-4.
Harris maintained his strong form in the second set to go into the change-over leading 3-2.
Medical time out
However, it was at this point that Lloyd Harris called for a medical time out.
When Harris was asked what necessitated this medical time out, he replied: “It was completely random. I was feeling physically great.
“I’ve had no issues. It has been a dream week for me with my body. Honestly. It was a random flare up. This tends to happen sometimes.
“I got severe pain in my neck and my back. It started going all over my body. Completely random. Out of nowhere.
“I was in cruise control. I hadn’t exerted myself too much. I felt something. One thing led to another. Then it kind of expanded in my body.”
Harris described taking a medical time out as the last thing he would have expected.
“It was the last thing I wanted to do when I was up. I wanted to keep the momentum. I didn’t feel capable of playing.”
The medical time out appeared to ease some of Harris’s pain.
“I felt a lot better after that.”
‘Costly’
However, Lloyd Harris would go on to lose the second set tie-breaker 7-3.
“The tie-breaker was a little bit poor from me. I made a couple of unnecessary mistakes. I wasn’t really making them in the first set.
“That cost me a little bit. Then I was a bit torn down after that.”
After the medical time out, Harris appeared to be hampered in his ability to move around the court.
“Obviously some more things crept in. Something wasn’t feeling quite right,” he confirmed.
Fritz dominated the third set, winning it 6-2.
Harris was down 5-2 in the fourth set, when he looked to make one last Herculean effort to make a comeback.
“I was still fighting. Giving it everything that I had. You’ve got to fight. There is always a turning point.”
Fritz had an opportunity to serve out the match at 5-2, but Harris dug deep and broke Fritz’s serve.
During Fritz’s press conference he described this game 8 of Harris’s as incredible.
“Then at the end of the match when I got broken at 5-2, I thought he played, like, one of the most insane games ever.”
‘Pretty good level’
Lloyd Harris described wanting Fritz “to have to earn his victory. He had to serve three aces to win the match.
“I knew I was quite capable of playing a pretty good level. Unfortunately, it was a case of too little too late.”
Harris reflected that he felt like his game plan was the correct one.
“I felt like the game plan was going well. I just couldn’t maintain it long enough.”
Harris understandably felt deflated after the loss.
“It was obviously a disappointing result. It’s not the outcome that I would have liked. There were some good moments. It’s always hard to see it straight away.”
“We’ll look at it tomorrow or the next day, look back and see all of the positives that we can take from it.”
“Look what worked and what didn’t. Right now, it’s disappointment.”
Let’s hope that Harris’s injury is not a long-term one and that he’ll be back on the court match-fit in due course.
Harris picked up $110 000 (R1.94 million) for losing in the second round, which excludes his earnings from qualifying for the tournament.
Dave Marshall is reporting exclusively from the US Open in Flushing Meadows for The South African.
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