Over for Kevin, but what a year!
ANDERSON: SA STAR FINDS DJOKOVIC IN SUBLIME FORM
The tennis year’s final rankings list is published today, and for the first time in the 45-year history of computer rankings, a South African will appear in the year-end top six. Kevin Anderson ended the best season of his career with defeat against Novak Djokovic on Saturday night, but the disappointment of one result takes little away from a superb body of work.
The tall South African was disappointed with his own showing in Djokovic’s 6-2 6-2 victory in the semi-finals of the Nitto ATP Finals. He admitted to not finding the same “sense of freedom” he had in his first two group matches against Dominic Thiem and Kei Nishikori, adding, “From my side it was pretty disappointing.
“I didn’t really play a very good match. I felt unsettled right from the beginning. I knew I had to take care of my service games, because he’s serving really well. And he’s returning well, which definitely makes life difficult, but that’s why he’s one of the best players of all time.”
Anderson knew he had to do everything right just to have a chance of being competitive. When he missed 11 out of 20 first serves in his first two service games and went a break down in the opening game, the omens were not good.
“Obviously it’s very upsetting not being able to play a little bit better today,” Anderson said, “but finishing the year at my career-best ranking means there’s been a lot of positives. As always, I’ll take the positives and keep my head up. As a team, we’ll look for ways to improve because I still think there’s room for improvement, and there are a lot of objectives I’ve set myself for next year.”
With Raven Klaasen’s good season (like Anderson he was also a Wimbledon runner-up) and Jeff Coetzee coaching Juan-Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah to the last four of the ATP Finals, it has been a great year for South African tennis. But many a top player in this era has had reason to bemoan being born to compete with the phenomenal Federer-Nadal-Djokovic generation, and Anderson simply had the misfortune to run into one of the sport’s greatest players playing at his highest level.