Ryan Harrison contested his first match since winning ATP Memphis last week. Despite his recent maiden title, the American's ranking remains too low for direct entry into the main draws of some events on tour still. However, on Saturday Harrison completed the first step in staking a claim in the main draw for Atp Acapulco 2017. He defeated Matthew Ebden 6-3, 6-3 in Acapulco's qualifying tournament.
Harrison now 1-2 against Ebden
The result of the match ends Ebden's hopes of attempting to accelerate his comeback on tour. Furthermore, Harrison avenged a two-loss losing streak to the Australian.
They had previously met several years earlier on tour and more recently on the challenger circuit. Ebden was 2-0 in their head-to-heads before falling in the Acapulco qualifications. Next up for Harrison, who is top seeded in the qualifying tournament, is either Tobias Kamke or Yoshihito Nishioka. Neither of those two players are likely to stop Harrison in his efforts to get into the main draw of Acapulco. At time of writing it was Nishioka that was up one set to love over the veteran Kamke.
Other Americans did well
There were other Americans involved in qualifying action on Saturday. Stefan Kozlov, a 19-year-old who resides in Florida, eliminated Hyeon Chung. Chung was seeded in the qualifying draw, making Kozlov's victory a small upset.
Jared Donaldson also advanced in the qualifying tournament, defeating Manuel Sanchez of Mexico 6-4, 6-3. Donaldson and Kozlov will actually face one another in the final qualifying round, meaning that one of them will make it into the main draw.
Other Americans still alive in qualifications at the time of this writing are Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz.
Fritz has an upcoming match against Konstantin Kravchuk while Tiafoe has a match against Kevin Jack Carpenter, a Mexican Wild Card. All of those players are looking to join John Isner, Jack Sock, Sam Querrey, and Steve Johnson in the 500-series tournament. Those are four American players that are already into the main draw by virtue of direct entry.
