Kevin Anderson set to make rankings history

The tennis year’s final rankings list will be published on Monday 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 at the weekend, 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.”

No doubt Anderson’s discomfort was real enough, but even a much better performance may have changed little, given the form Djokovic has found in the last four months.

There are many who feel the Serb will have no competition next year if he can keep up this form, and the way he demolished Anderson in just an hour and a quarter feeds such views.

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.

He picked up his serving level in the second set, by then the genie was out of the bottle.

Djokovic moved effortlessly around the court, and while Anderson has clearly played better matches over the year, it’s churlish to castigate him for a sub-standard percentage of first serves, if only because Djokovic was as adept at returning the first serve as he was the second.

“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.”

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