CAPE TOWN - The injury-plagued Kevin Anderson has for the first time in many months cracked a place in top 100 on the latest ATP world rankings.
The latest rankings were released yesterday, showing Anderson had moved 25 places, from 111 to 86 in the world. The big move no doubt came about following his straight-sets win over World No 6 Daniil Medvedev at the Vienna Open in Austria, last Friday.
This result marked Anderson’s first win over a top 10 player in more than a year.
Before his showdown with Russian Medvedev, Anderson had an impressive win over World No 15 Pablo Carreno Busta. That result would also have been worth a bag full of points.
Anderson’s gallant march in Austrian ended abruptly when injury forced him to retire in the semi-finals against Russian Andrey Rublev, the eventual 6-4 4-1 (retired) winner. Rublev went on to win the tournament.
Lloyd Harris remains South Africa’s highest singles ranked player. He is presently in 83rd position.
Harris is presently on his way back to Cape Town and will take a short break before preparing for next year.
SA doubles specialist Raven Klaasen is in 17th place on the world doubles ranking.
After his split with doubles partner Austrian Oliver Marach in mid-October, Klaasen has linked up with Japan’s Ben McLachlan. They will need time to develop as a team.
They will be playing in this week’s Paris Masters and have a first-round match today against Casper Ruud (Norway) and Taylor Fritz (United States).
Anderson will also be playing in Paris and will be up against the 54th-ranked Serbian Laslo Dere in the opening round today.
The former World No 5 Anderson will go into the match with a 2-0 head-to-head record over the Dere, who will fly the flag for Serbia after his countryman Novak Djokovic withdrew from the event.
@Herman_Gibbs