Anderson a chink of light amid tennis gloom

Sending out the South Africans who feature in the world rankings is very good communication on TSA’s behalf, but it does make dismal reading to say the least. Especially if you read past the current two flag-bearers, Kevin Anderson and Raven Klaasen.

A quick glance at the last correspondence from our eager tennis people shows that apart from Anderson, who moved up to No 15 after reaching the US Open final, South Africa sadly only have two other players in the top 1 000 of men’s singles players.

Lloyd Harris at No 259 and Nik Scholtz clocking in at No 404. Seven more players follow them, with Philip Henning at No 1 676. Over on the women’s side, things look even worse. Chanel Simmonds is the only South African in the top 1 000 at No 330, with three others sporting four-digit rankings. Judging by Mzansi’s presence in the rankings, it’s no surprise that we are competing on a Davis Cup tier labelled Europe/Africa Zone Group 2.

In short, that means they’ve got as much chance of winning the Davis Cup as Bafana Bafana have of winning the World Cup. But it can actually get worse than that. Just try the women.

South Africa will be contesting in Europe/Africa Zone 3 next season. Never mind what that entails, and how many light years it will take to progress, weighing up their opposition does provide us with some clues on what the overall strength of the group will be. Madagascar, Malta, Mozambique, Namibia … the list goes on. And then we take our sad lack of a flagship ATP or WTA tournament into account.

After a brief re-emergence after a 12-year hiatus, the SA Open again died after the 2011 edition. And even the Soweto Open, a second-tier event, couldn’t survive. So in a nutshell, South African tennis in general leaves much to be desired. And our image was further tarnished when Joshua Chetty was banned after being found guilty of match-fixing last year.

When the news broke very few tennis fans had ever heard of Chetty because he was competing in the backwaters of the tennis world, holding a ranking of No 1 857. But over the past two weeks, South African tennis punched above it’s weight during Anderson’s amazing run to the US Open final.

Yes, we have had a few good moments over the last handful of years like Anderson’s three ATP singles titles in lower-profile events, the big-server pushing defending champion Novak Djokovic to five sets at Wimbledon two years ago and Raven Klaasen reaching the Australian Open doubles final three years back, but this time it was the real deal.

The men’s singles during an era littered with incredibly gifted players in a Grand Slam, the ultimate challenge. And finally another epic chapter in the history of South African tennis, that has produced a Davis and Fed Cup title, six Olympic medals and plenty of Grand Slam winners if you combine singles, doubles and mixed doubles, was added.

With more Andersons and less Chettys, the only way from here is up.