Harris needs one more victory
RISING TENNIS talent Lloyd Harris,
is one victory away from reaching his second Grand Slam main draw after beating Germany’s Dominik Koepfer 7-5, 6-3 early yesterday morning.
The 22-year-old Harris dropped his first service game but immediately made up for it, gaining control of the match to win the second-round qualifying match for the Australian Open.
He will now go up against German veteran Dustin Brown, who is ranked 224th in the world, in the third and deciding round of the qualifying tournament today.
Harris is riding the wave of a breakthrough 2018 in which he reached a career-high 110th ATP world ranking after winning two Challenger Series titles.
He reached his first Grand Slam at the 2018 US Open, suffering a firstround 2-6 2-6 3-6 defeat to former world number six Gilles Simon of France.
South African singles ace Kevin Anderson is seeded fifth for this year’s Aussie Open, with world number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia being named as the top seed yesterday.
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer were named second and third seeds respectively.
Defending champion Federer and Djokovic will both be chasing a record seven Australian Open titles.
Anderson will be looking to build on his superb start to the 2019 season after winning the Tata Open Maharashtra trophy in Pune, India last weekend.
South Africa’s top doubles player Raven Klaasen continued on his winning way with Kiwi partner Michael
pictured,
Venus at the Auckland Open yesterday.
The duo rolled past Argentinian Guido Pella and Portugal’s João Sousa with a 7-5, 6-3 victory to set up a semi-final clash against American brothers Mike and Bob Bryan today.
Klaasen and Venus experienced a good first year as a doubles partnership in 2018, winning the Open 13 Provence title in Marseille, while they also finished runner-up at four other tournaments.
They featured in the Wimbledon doubles final where they lost to Mike Bryan and Jack Sock of the United States in a nail-biting clash.
Playing in their 21st season as a doubles combination, the Bryan brothers will be a major mountain for the SA-Kiwi pair to overcome to reach the final.
The Bryan brothers have won 114 doubles titles together and have held the world’s number one doubles ranking jointly for 438 weeks.