Qualifier Harrison, Stosur advance at Citi Open

12:54 AM ET

WASHINGTON — Back when Ryan Harrison participated in the 2011 edition of the hard-court ATP tournament in the nation’s capital, he was still a teen, still considered the next big thing in American men’s tennis, and still talking about wanting to be, in his words at the time, a “multiple Grand Slam champion.”

Harrison lost to Viktor Troicki that week. As it happens, all of these years and hiccups later, Harrison played the same guy again Wednesday at the same event, and this time he won, eliminating the 10th-seeded Troicki of Serbia 7-6 (4), 6-4 to reach the Citi Open’s third round as a qualifier.

For Harrison, now 24 and nearly a decade into his professional career, it represents the first time he’s won back-to-back main-draw matches in 2016. It also represents a real step back in the right direction for someone who reached his career-best ranking of 43rd in 2012 and is now 158th.

“Mentally, it’s been an up and down ride over the last couple years, because the hardest thing to do when you’ve had early success and you hit a speed bump is to let go of the negative. You can dwell on so many things. At so many stages of my career, I’ve been angry and irritated. I’ve been discouraged. Not depressed in my life, but disappointed with the way that I’m playing,” Harrison said in an interview after beating Troicki in front of a standing-room-only crowd.

“You can get in a sulky mode. Everything that’s built up from negative moments can …

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