Young guns Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania and Ryan Harrison of Louisiana both prepared for the Australian Open with guidance from true living legends Roger Federer and John McEnroe. Berankis had a practice session with Roger Federer on Rod Laver Arena today in a rare moment this week without any rain. It may be a blessing that Ricardas lost in Sydney earlier this week to former Top 20 player Igor Andreev in order to get some invaluable time holding court with King Roger.
Berankis from Brisbane last week
Training with Roger Federer is nothing new for Berankis since you may recall that Roger brought both him and Jesse Levine down to Dubai back in 2007 as full-time hitting partners when Rafael Nadal first started nipping at his heels. Berankis always had good things to say about the experience and Roger as a person, and I am sure today helped Ricardas hone his game in time for the first Slam of 2011. Ricardas has a winnable 1st round match against Australian Wild Card Marinko Matosevic. While Marinko is no pushover, Ricardas will have a good chance to play the winner of Lleyton Hewitt and Nalbandian in the 2nd round. Now Roger can surely give Ricardas advice on both of those blokes.
Marinko with his Golden Ticket
Ryan Harrison saw for himself this week that Marinko can play some serious game. Young Ryan got a last-minute invitation to go to Adelaide for a unique event called the World Tennis Challenge when James Blake pulled out. The event fielded four teams that each consisted of an active ATP player and a Champions Tour legend with match play resembling that of Hopman Cup. Although Ryan lost all of his singles matches to Llodra, Ljubicic, and Matosevic who subbed for an ailing Nishikori; he and John McEnroe were able to emerge as champions.
Ryan got plenty of match play with lefties Llodra, Ljubicic, and McEnroe which will come in handy in Melbourne as his 1st Round match is against French lefty Adrian Mannarino. The pros played their singles matches with full intensity to help prepare them for Melbourne. You can see 
from the videos below that the all bets were off during the doubles matches especially when the French duo of Henri LeConte and Michael Llodra decided to take their clothes off. Ryan probably got more of an education than he wanted, but he seemed to have fun learning from the legends of the game.
Did Johnny Mac also teach Ryan how to speak to the umps?
Ryan has some fun and even gets the ump to hit the court the next day…
And lastly, Ryan watches and learns from the master at the trophy presentation.
Best of luck to Ryan and Ricardas in Melbourne, keep following those legends!
