Kevin Anderson has tasted his share of minor successes so far in his professional career, playing in Grand Slam tournaments, Masters 1000 and Masters 250 events on the Senior Tour; all that the ATP World Tour has to offer. I’m less interested in the scrawny Anderson who impressed as a junior player while training on American soil. I reckon that the tall right-handed athlete who continues to grow in physique will give us more of a run for our money than Wayne Ferreira did.
I realize that this is a big ask. Ferreira was SA’s last hopeful who lifted the South African flag as high as he could in men’s tennis, reaching #6 in World Rankings on the ATP World Tour. Ferreira also performed very well as a junior player. He was ranked World #1 in his doubles game and #6 in singles game, and won the US Open in 1980.
He competed in 56 consecutive Grand Slam Tournaments between the 1991 Australian Open and 2004 US Open (a record he held until Roger Federer broke in 2013), with his best Grand Slam results coming at the Australian Open where he reached the semi-finals twice in 1992 and 2003.
His résumé speaks for itself on any given day. His inconsistency however, hardest luck, or his ‘choking’ (in 21st century street lingo) saw him unable to secure a Grand Slam title. Anderson still struggles with aspects of his game which he can surely improve on, and they include finishing off points more decisively at net and finding the accuracy on his ground strokes.
Height alone does not ensure that the moment an athlete steps out on court they will intimidate their opponent. Touching on the positives that Anderson has drawn from since claiming his maiden title on South African show grounds by beating Somdev Devvarman:
He got the better of the current World #4 Andy Murray in 2011 at the Roger’s Cup, he beat Andy Roddick early in 2012 at one of his favourite tournaments, The Delray Beach International, and went on to win that title that season – (I recall thinking how his run would be ended by John Isner in the semis), but he took out the American in straight sets.
Anderson has showed that he is indeed able to compete at that level; with arguably the greatest athletes the game has ever seen. Some may debate how Ferreira too played against the Jim Corriers and Boris Beckers of the Tour – and did his best then, in an era which was absent of umbrellas over their heads, ice-towels to aid in cooling them down and other things which could be thought to be luxuries now available to the players.
Anderson in my opinion has everything within his reach to be S.A’s #1 in all respects. I do not mean that South Africans should have all memories of Ferreira wiped from their memory banks. I just see a promising future for Anderson. Here’s what one reporter once wrote about the ‘leaves a lot to be desired’ state of Tennis SA, and I quote: ‘’The big regret always around the Grand Slams, is why South Africa doesn’t have players capable of breaking into the Top 20, or even the Top 10.
For a country with the climate, the outdoors and a population of around 50 million – it’s actually a draining indictment on the continuing overall state of tennis in South Africa, rather than a slur on Anderson’’. I thought oh my! What are our excuses? Has South Africa ever been considered a tennis nation? In truth, no.
But, if Anderson broke into the Top 10, that reporter would no longer figure Anderson to only be a mere nuisance to his higher-ranked opponents. Confidence does a world of good to any player. He desperately needs that.
The more he performs to have more decent runs in Masters events, the more confidence he will gain since the potential is there. So often, some players have to work harder than others. He has to believe that he can last more than 1 week in a Major tournament. So far, like Ferreira, he has come alive in the Australian Open in recent seasons for that so-called ‘happy Slam’ to be where he has found most happiness than others.
In a match against his long-time foe Tomas Berdych for instance (Australian Open Round of 32 2012), he competed in such a way that he made the first 2 sets as tough a contest as he could hope for – but he could not brush off the fact he was unable to convert break points against a Top 10 player.
The first and second sets were tie breaks, the opening breaker being closer than the second…he completely surrendered in the third set. He was broken twice while his opponent registered a poor less than 50% of first serves.
South Africans are yet to support their tennis players to the death. They are yet to embrace the sport as they do Cricket, Rugby and Soccer. One South African player who once won a Grand Slam title was Johan Kriek, (being careful of counting or not counting a second occasion when he had already acquired American citizenship the following year.
So South Africans would have said…’We are so proud of Kriek who won the Australian Open in 1981 and 1982. Let’s add all the others who were finalists in Major events Kevin Curren (now makes his home in Austin, Texas, which is also where he received his education): reached the Australian Open final in ’84 and Wimbledon the following year, Cliff Drysdale (who lives in Miami, Florida), reached the F of the US Open back in ’65, the late Eric Sturgess reached Finals at the French and US Open, the late Brian Norton and Ian Vermaak also have Finals at Major events.
Things were undoubtedly very difficult for South Africans back then; the last thing people had on their minds was making it in Sport. Those who could though, managed to travel abroad and pursue some kind of ‘better’ life.
Last season Anderson won a title in Winston-Salem after a dry spell of no titles. In fact, he had not won a title since that run at Delray Beach, and the sore point is that he had become more of a Finals player. Anderson said then that he has been in a few finals and come up short (7 is not a few)…but spoke of how each final is different and that there has to be a winner and a loser at the end of the day. Before winning that title last season, he had lost 7 Tour finals dating back to Sydney 2013 season.
There are certainly more titles in him, whether at 250 events or 500 and so on…the question on the lips of the SA tennis community is whether or not he will win all those and accomplish great heights as an American citizen or as a South African citizen. I put him Anderson up against himself, not SA history.
He has what it takes to give us more than sorry excuses for paragraphs when scribbling Tennis South Africa. The question I pose to him is How long do we give him?
