Klaasen, Anderson fly flag
It is set to be a winner-takes-all match as King William’s Townborn Raven Klaasen and his doubles teammate Michael Venus from New Zealand take on the Colombian pair of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah for a place in the ATP World Tour Finals semifinals in London on Thursday.
Both pairs head into the final round-robin game having won one and lost one match in the season-ending tournament and the winner will progress to the semis along with Britain’s Jamie Murray and Brazil’s Bruno Soares, who have already qualified from the group.
“It’s all go now, we knew today [Tuesday] if we don’t get this win then we are playing on Thursday for nothing really, so we have done our job to get the win in straight sets and put ourselves in the hunt,” Klaasen said after their win on Tuesday.
“Ithinkithasgivenus extra motivation for Thursday.”
Having lost an epic threesetter to the Murray/Soares combination in their opening match, Klaasen and Venus went into their second game on Tuesday knowing only a win would keep them in the running.
It turned out to be a massive arm wrestle, but the SA/New Zealand pair emerged victorious after edging the tie 7-6 7-6.
“This scoring system can keep things interesting out there,” Klaasen said.
“We felt [in] the first set that we were probably more comfortable on serve, we had a few looks with them but they played well on those points, and then you just have to kinda stay calm that the stuff you are doing is going to work in the tie break,” he said.
“Obviously we would have liked to serve it out [in the second set], but they came up with a good shot on break point and then again we practised being positive after things go wrong and regrouped to finish the match and [were] very happy we didn’t have to go three [sets].”
Klaasen and Venus will now hope that they will be fresh for the Colombian challenge, and take that winning momentum into the match.
Cabal and Farah will have to bounce back from the disappointment of their last match loss if they are to force their way into the semis.
Also looking to seal a place in the semifinals, on the singles side, is SA’s Kevin Anderson, who has the daunting task of taking on No 2 seed Roger Federer.
Fourth-seeded Anderson has been in terrific form so far in the tournament, brushing aside sixth seed Dominic Thiem 6-3 7-6 in his opening match and then crushing seventh seed Kei Nishikori 6-0 6-1 on Tuesday.
A win over Federer would see Anderson head into the semis as group winner but a loss could give Nishikori a shot at sneaking in as he beat Federer in their opening clash, meaning if he were to beat Thiem, there would be a three-way tie of two wins each in the group.
The action will be live on SuperSport on Thursday night.