Kevin Anderson

He was the first South African to be ranked in the top 5 since Kevin Curren was No. 5 on 23 September 1985.On 6 February 2011, Anderson defeated Somdev Devvarman in his hometown of Johannesburg to capture the South African Open title for his first ATP Tour-level title.

Kevin Michael Anderson (born 18 May 1986) is a South African professional tennis player.

During his sophomore year (2005–06), he won the national doubles championships with playing partner Ryan Rowe.

In 2005, Anderson played his first pro tournaments of the year in June, again in the United States, reaching the finals of USA F13 and F21.

He returned to Champaign again in November, beating No. 107 Kevin Kim to reach his first Challenger quarterfinal.

He finished the year ranked No. 517.

In doubles, he won a pair of USA Futures back to back in June and finished the year ranked No. 530.

In 2006, Anderson again waited until June to play his first tournaments.

He repeated as a finalist in USA F12, and then won USA F13 before qualifying two weeks later in the Winnetka Challenger and reaching the final to push his ranking to No. 310.

He recorded his first win over a top-100 opponent in the qualifying for the ATP tournament in New Haven, beating No. 88 Chris Guccione, before losing in the main draw to No. 41 Arnaud Clément.

In 2007, Anderson led Illinois to a runner-up team finish, losing to host Georgia on their home courts.

In the championship dual match, Anderson lost at #1 singles to future ATP top-ten player, John Isner.

During the singles tournament, Anderson lost in the semifinals to eventual two-time national champion, Somdev Devvarman of Virginia.

In doubles, Anderson and partner, Ryan Rowe, fell short of repeating as champions, losing in the championship match to Marco Born and Andreas Siljeström of Middle Tennessee State in three sets, after having a couple match points.

At age 17, Anderson entered his first professional tournament, winning four main-draw matches in the four-week tournament to earn a world ranking of No. 1178 from his only tournament of the year.

He also finished the year with a doubles ranking of No. 902.

In November, Anderson entered his third pro tournament and won the Botswana F1 to push his ranking to No. 769.

He followed that up the next two weeks in South Africa, reaching the final in F1 and the semifinals in F2 to finish the year ranked No. 665 in singles from just 3 tournaments.

At age 19, Anderson continued to play at the Futures level, exclusively in the United States, reaching the semifinals of USA F21 in August.

In November, he played his first Challenger event in Champaign, qualifying and beating No. 192 Jan-Michael Gambill in the first round.

He finished the year ranked No. 766.

In September 2007 in the Challenger in New Orleans, he needed to qualify to make the main draw in both singles and doubles, and won all 13 matches that week to take the singles and doubles titles, beating four top-200 singles players and the top three seeded doubles teams.

His Challenger success in New Orleans helped him to career-high rankings at the end of 2007 of No. 221 in singles and No. 398 in doubles.

Anderson began 2008 with a bit of success, reaching the quarters of the Challenger in New Caledonia before qualifying in his first Grand Slam attempt in Australia.

He lost in the main draw first round to No. 84 Alejandro Falla in 5 sets, but his efforts got his ranking to a career high of No. 190.

At the 2008 Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas, as a qualifier, he managed to defeat sixth seed Michaël Llodra in straight sets, 6–2, 7–6.

The match, which lasted 6 hours and 36 minutes, was only beaten in length by the 2010 match between Isner and France's Nicolas Mahut.

He then lost to Novak Djokovic in the final in straight sets.

On 3 May 2022, Anderson retired at age 35 but he announced his comeback in July 2023.

Anderson started playing tennis at age six and was competitive in 800-metre races at school.

His second ATP title came at the 2012 Delray Beach Open when he defeated Marinko Matosevic.

Anderson won his third championship in 2015 at the Winston-Salem Open with a victory over Pierre-Hugues Herbert.

He ended 2017 winning the exhibition World Tennis Championship.

Anderson reached his maiden Grand Slam final at the 2017 US Open, where he lost to Rafael Nadal.

On the eve of their meeting in the finals at the 2017 US Open, it emerged that as a 12-year old, Anderson regularly competed against future world number one Rafael Nadal on the juniors circuit.

Anderson played three seasons of college tennis in the United States at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

He was a three-time All-American in singles and two-time All-American in doubles.

He achieved his career-high Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) ranking of world No. 5 on 16 July 2018.

His fourth title came in February 2018 at the New York Open.

In the 2018 Wimbledon semifinals, Anderson reached his second major final by defeating American John Isner in the second-longest match in the history of major tournaments.