This ATP doubles title win is about as good as it gets for Klaasen

Simbine: History is going to be made at SA Championships

GIVEN the country’s depth of talent, national record holder Akani Simbine believes the 100m final at the South African Championships in Potchefstroom in April could produce one of the greatest races in the world.

Simbine and rising star Thando Roto made history at the Gauteng North Athletics Championships at the Tuks track in Pretoria on Saturday, when they became the first two South Africans to dip below 10 seconds in the same race.

“It is going to be huge (the SA Championships), a couple of records are going to fall there, I feel like history is going to be made there and more than two guys are going to go sub-10 in that race,” Simbine,

said. “It will probably (be) one of the best 100m races in the world and not just in South Africa.”

Simbine crossed the line in a time of 9.92 seconds with Roto clocking 9.95secs to become the fifth South African to dip RAJEEV RAM gave himself the best possible 33rd birthday present on Saturday at the Indian Wells Masters, teaming up with Raven Klaasen to defeat eighth seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo 6-7(1), 6-4, 10-8 to win the doubles title.

The victory gives South Africa’s Klaasen and American Ram their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title as a team. It’s the first Masters 1000 title for Ram and second for Klaasen, who previously won in Shanghai in 2015 with Melo. This is Klaasen and Ram’s fifth title as a team and second of 2017, having also prevailed last month in Delray Beach.

Four of their five matches this fortnight went to a match tie-break. Klaasen

and Ram also have the unique distinction of recording back-to-back wins in this tournament over Rafael Nadal (with Bernard Tomic) and Novak Djokovic (with Viktor Troicki) in their second-round and quarter-final matches.

“When you think of one to win and how below the magical 10-second mark and the second fastest man in the country.

Realising what he had achieved, becoming the second fastest South African, Roto reflected, then burst out laughing with joy.

“It just clicked now, I am the second fastest South African behind Akani … I knew if I can beat him I can better myself because I knew he was the better athlete in the race,” Roto said.

Stellar local performances over the to win it, this is about as good as it gets. To play two legends of the game that are still playing, Nadal and Djokovic, and then to go all the way to finish the trophy out is something that I will cherish for a long time,” said Klaasen. “We thought that we were playing well enough to win it, but it’s still very difficult, specifically this tournament, to go all the way given the amount of good players in the draw.”

The first set saw five of the 12 games go to a deciding point, but there were no breaks of serve going into the tie-break. Kubot proved to be the star player in the crucial stages of the set, helping land an early mini-break on Klaasen’s serve and then hitting a return winner off Ram’s first-serve to give his team a 5-1 lead. A strong first serve from Kubot on the first set point gave the eighth seeds a commanding lead.

It appeared that Kubot and Melo would storm to the title after a volley error from Klaasen gave them the first break of the weekend has made the world sit up and notice SA track and field, including national records and a new global mark.

It was raining firsts over the weekend with Olympic silver medallist Luvo Manyonga setting the tone when he leapt to a new SA record of 8.62m on his first attempt in his specialist long jump event.

Improving Khotso Mokoena’s previous national mark by 12 centimetres, Manyonga can start his pursuit of the global record in earnest.

Manyonga said it was about time that long jumpers got closer to American Mike Powell’s 8.95m record he set back in 1991.

“The world record has been a goal for me even before I started doing long jump, and I wanted to be the first person on earth to jump over nine metres,” Manyonga said.

“If you see what I am jumping now, you can see there is something in my legs. At the moment I am jumping at 99 percent.

“I’m very happy with myself where I am changing the game, I think it is time to take the limelight from the track and put it on match to lead 2-1 in the second set. However, nerves from Kubot saw the Polish player hit a double fault down break point to gift the lead back and even the set at 4-4. Two games later, a forehand return winner from Klaasen on set point levelled the match at one set each.

The match tie-break proved to be a nervy affair, with both teams recognising the importance of the occasion. Little separated the two pairs throughout, but a big return of serve from Klaasen on match point at 9-8 guided them to the title.

“I think everybody’s goal, whether singles or doubles, is to make it to the ATP World Tour Finals at the end of the year. A title like this definitely puts us in good position to at least try to do that,” said Ram. “I think it’s good validation for what we’re doing. We are trying to improve all the time. And when you see results that back up the work you have done, it really makes it motivating to keep going and keep trying to continue to get better.” the field events.”

Wresting the attention away from the track proved to be only a brief interlude as the country’s sprinters gave the world more reasons to take notice of what is happening in SA.

During the morning heats, 18-year-old Gift Leotlela set a new SA junior 100m record when he clocked 10.12 in the heats, chopping 0.07 off Simbine’s mark from 2012.

On the first day of the championships, 16-year-old Sokwakhana Zazini posted a new world youth record in the 400m hurdles with a time of 48.84, improving the previous global mark by 0.17.

Hennie Kriel, who coaches Zazini, Leotlela, and Roto, has long predicted that five South Africans would dip below 10 seconds in the same race on home soil.

At the Western Province Championships, Rocco van Rooyen unleashed his second longest javelin throw with a heave of 84.09 metres to book his place for the world championships. A NEW match, some new players, but the same sorry old story for the Cape Cobras. After having the week off to re-organise and re-strategise, the home team still came out and gravely disappointed the die-hard souls who had chosen to come to Newlands on a glorious day for the last competitive game of the season yesterday.

But perhaps we should all be grateful for small mercies that the 2016-17 domestic cricket season has come to an end. There is still one game remaining for the Cobras in this Momentum One-Day Cup, but that’s away to the Titans in Centurion.

Yes, it has become that soul-destroying to watch the Cobras this season. This is not a dig at Cobras coach Ashwell Prince and his support staff, who all worked extremely hard at preparing the squad throughout the week, but rather a plea to a group of players who need to do some soul-searching during off-season to realise what a privilege it actually is to ply their trade at this hallowed old ground.

Newlands is the home of legends. From the time of Eddie Barlow through to Garth le Roux, Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis and Vernon Philander it has always been the place where quality cricket was on display.

Not yesterday though, or at least from the men in royal blue. For the third match in succession at Newlands, the Cobras bowlers conceded 300-runs plus. A second-wicket partnership of 183 between Rudi Second (103 off 128 balls) – the fifth opener to blast a century in three Newlands matches – and Tumelo Bodibe 93 (107 balls) placed the Knights in an unassailable position.

Rory Kleinveldt tried valiantly to keep the central franchise’s innings in check with excellent figures of 3/41, but David Miller ensured the momentum was maintained with a lightning fast 58 (37 balls) that propelled the Knights to 300/5.

It only took 11.4 overs into the Cobras innings to realise that there was not going to be a spirited chase for the Newlands faithful to saviour. With no Richard Levi, who was sitting out with a groin injury, at the top of the order the Cobras slipped to 1/2, 2/2, 24/3, 37/4 and eventually 40/5.

Andrea Agathangelou struck a few enterprising boundaries in his 35-ball 24, but the Cobras needed much more than a cameo.

Dayyaan Galiem, who too was drafted into the side yesterday, showed that he could form a big part of the Cobras’ future going forward with a battling 41 (47 balls) and the hierarchy will hope the 20-year-old takes confidence from this innings into next season. It helped push the Cobras up to 152, but ultimately still ended in a demoralising 148-run defeat.