Ryan Harrison, 17 years old and winning tennis matches

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It’s getting crowded here at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Friday night’s session is sold out (the one for Hit for Haiti featuring matches with still-playing legends such as Justine Henin, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and recently retired legends Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport) and so is Saturday’s day session.

Friday a good-sized day crowd has gathered on Stadium 1 court and are well into the match between Long Beach’s Vania King and No. 2-seeded Caroline Wozniacki, who is on serve, 2-1, in the third set.

But Thursday night, with no more than a couple of hundred people on the big stadium court, a 17-year-old from Shreveport, La., Ryan Harrison, became the youngest male here since 2002 to win a match. That he beat veteran Taylor Dent in itself isn’t momentous, but Harrison’s aggressive game shows considerable poise already.

After his win, Harrison was entertaining in telling stories of how he got to warm up Andy Roddick once at the U.S. Open. Harrison said that after he got done working Roddick into the proper lather, Roddick got into the umpire’s chair and told Harrison he’d give him $50 if Harrison could beat Roddick’s older brother, John, in a quick set. ‘I lost 10-8,’ Harrison remembered. ‘Fifty dollars was a lot of money, like 25 cheeseburgers.’

Harrison also said that as the rookie in the locker room, he undergoes some gentle hazing. Roddick was the culprit again, at the Australian Open last January, when he lost an innocuous bet to Roddick and was forced to fetch coffee from the players’ coffee bar wearing nothing but a towel. ‘A very big towel,’ Harrison was quick to tell us.

Next up for Harrison is big-serving Croatian and 20th-seeded Ivan Ljubicic.

-- Diane Pucin