British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

First time commenting here, but as a Finn and a long time follower of Harri and his career. Pretty strong statements about Harri in previous posts. But calling him a manipulative liar, well that's a different level of insult. Having followed his career for a long time, and met the guy on several occasions, i take great offense to has been said about him in some of the previous posts. Really could not be further from the truth.

His blog gives a great insight to a life of a touring level professional and i doubt that similar level of access has been given before by many any other players. I think its a great service and should be appreciated. Never tried the translated version of it, so i am not entirely sure how it comes across to those whom have yet to master the Finnish language. But for a native speaker i find it bit baffling that based on his posts someone would think that there has "always been something off" with the guy, or that he comes across somehow manipulative in his posts. Manipulative of what, or whom? I mean the guy is his own worst critic. And in any case most of his posts are just pretty descriptive and focus mostly on analyzing the matches. And he has always been active in replying in the comment sections as well, so that's nothing new either.

When it comes to the business in Shanghai. He did not take a 12 hour flight to Shanghai knowing well in advance he was not going to play and just went there to collect the first round money. He has a wife and two young kids at home, so that **** would definitely not fly at home. And with flights and taxes, well that 10k is already mostly gone. As he stated, he had all the intentions of playing. Had offers from multiple doubles guys, but did not commit to anyone because was unsure if he would actually be fit to play (he did not practice for two weeks after Davis Cup). The guy loves to compete, that is why he flew all the way to Shanghai to make the final decision. In the end there was not many options for repairing, thus Arnaldi. Finally made the (sensible)decision not to risk rest of the season with is his back issue and withdrew. Which was new, considering he had made few unsensible decisions during the season (Doha and Dubai with high fever and US Open with a really bad back). Singles guys tend to also be more ok with such late decision to withdraw. He was completely open about it, when he could have just made a short statement that he is not playing in Shanghai. And because of that openness people are now on his case and making him all sort of things.  

I guess the biggest issue, or offense seems to be that he took the prize money. In the end he had significant costs to fly out there, so i'm sure some others would have done the same. But i also understand why others see it differently. The singles guys do it all the time, so the rules and regulations should perhaps be reconsidered. In any case that does not really make him such a bad person he seems to be made out to be. And not sure if the offense would have felt so severe if the ALT-pair would have been Smith / Reyes-Varela. But now Luke and Sander are in and hopefully they can make a run out of it. 

Peace and love. And thank you for the British doubles system, very much doubt that we'd have a such a successful player in Harri without it.