Rising South African tennis star Lloyd Harris shot up 16 places on the ATP world rankings to a career high of 145 after reaching the final of the Aptos Challenger in California, USA, over the weekend of August 11.
It was the second week in a row that Harris had reached a Challenger final. The 21-year-old won his maiden ATP Challenger title in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, two weeks ago and then the unseeded reached the Californian final on Sunday losing to fourth-seeded Australian, Thanasi Kokkinakis 2-6 3-6.
This week Harris will be in action in Canada where he got a special exempt into the Vancouver ATP Challenger.
Speaking to the Southern Courier during the Davis Cup Tie Harris said: “I have decided that it will be my milestone this year to reach100 rankings. It is very hard work but the benefit will be that you don’t have to play so much in the minor tournaments to qualify for the bigger ones; you mostly automatically then qualify to play in the major tournaments.”
Harris has almost reached his milestone. Having a few months left, he will most probably get below the 100 world rankings.
Meanwhile, Kevin Anderson remains in the world’s top ten at No. 6 after reaching the last four of the ATP Masters Rogers Cup in Toronto last week. Anderson lost narrowly in the semifinal to 19-year-old Greek sensation, Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (4) 4-6 6-7 (7). This week Anderson will be in action in the ATP Masters Cincinnati event. Anderson is also ranked sixth in the race to London, where the year-end top eight ATP World Championships will be played in November.
Photo: Annette van Schalkwyk
Raven Klaasen moved up two spots on the world doubles ranking to number 21 and remains the country’s highest ranked doubles player. On Sunday, Klaasen and his New Zealand doubles partner Michael Venus reached the final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto, Canada losing to second-seeded Henri Kontinen (FIN) and John Peers (AUS) 2-6 7-6 (7) 6-10.
Klaasen and Venus will also be in action this week in Cincinnati where they are unseeded.
Klaasen and Venus are ranked fifth in the race to London for the year-end top eight team ATP World Championships.
Chanel Simmonds remains the highest ranked South African singles (338) and doubles (233) women’s player.
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