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Kevin Anderson

Country	South Africa
Residence	Champaign, IL, United States
Date of birth	May 18, 1986 (1986-05-18) (age 23)
Place of birth	Johannesburg, South Africa
Height	2.03 m (6 ft 8 in)
Weight	89 kg (200 lb)
Turned pro	2007
Plays	Right-handed; two-handed backhand
Career prize money	US$361,738
Singles
Career record	13–17
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 95 (June 9, 2008)
Current ranking	No. 147 (January 11, 2010)
Grand Slam results
Australian Open	1r (2008, 2009)
Wimbledon	1r (2008)
Doubles
Career record	3–5
Career titles	0
Highest ranking	No. 114 (June 8, 2009)
Wimbledon	QF (2008)
Last updated on: November 9, 2009.

Kevin Anderson (born May 18, 1986 in Johannesburg) is a male South African tennis player.

He became the top-ranked South African player on March 10, 2008 after making the final at the 2008 Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas. He reached a career-high ranking of #95 on June 9, 2008 after upsetting world #3 Novak Djokovic to reach the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida.

Anderson has represented South Africa in both Davis Cup play and in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Collegiate career

Anderson played three seasons of college tennis in the United States at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was a three-time All-American in singles and two-time All-American in doubles. During his sophomore year (2005-06), he won the national doubles championshipwith his partner, Ryan Rowe.

The following season (2006-07), he led the Illini team to a national runner-up finish before again reaching the national championship match in doubles with Ryan Rowe and reaching the semi-finals in singles.

During the summer of 2007, Anderson decided to forgo his senior season at Illinois to pursue his professional tennis career full-time[1].

Professional career

2003

At age 17, Anderson entered his first professional tournament, a Satellite in South Africa, winning 4 main draw matches in the 4 week tournament to earn a world ranking of #1178 from his only tournament of the year. He also finished the year with a doubles ranking of #902.

2004

In November, Anderson entered his 3rd pro tournament and won the Botswana F1 to push his ranking to #769. He followed that up the next two weeks in South Africa, reaching the final in F1 and the semi-final in F2 to finish the year ranked #665 in singles from just 3 tournaments.

2005

At age 19, Anderson continued to play at the Futures level, exclusively in the United States, reaching the semi-final of USA F21 in August. In November, he played his first Challenger in Champaign, qualifying and beating #192 Jan-Michael Gambill in the first round. He finished the year ranked #766.

2006

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 #107 Kevin Kim to reach his first Challenger quarterfinal. He finished the year ranked #517.

In doubles, he won a pair of USA Futures back to back in June and finished the year ranked #530.

2007

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 2 weeks later in the Winnetka Challenger and reaching the final to push his ranking to #310. He recorded his first win over a top-100 opponent in the qualifying for the ATP tournament in New Haven, beating #88 Chris Guccione, before losing in the main draw to #41 Arnaud Clément.

Anderson's most interesting result in 2007 was in September 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 4 top-200 singles players and the top 3 seeded doubles teams. ^[1]

His Challenger success in New Orleans helped him to career-high rankings at the end of 2007 of #221 in singles and #398 in doubles.

2008

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 #84 Alejandro Falla in 5 sets, but his efforts got his ranking to a career high of #190.

At the Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas, as a qualifier, he managed to defeat sixth seed Michaël Llodra in straight sets, 6–2, 7–6. In the second round he beat giant John Isner 7–6, 7–5. He beat Evgeny Korolev in his first ever ATP quarter-final 6–2, 6–0. In the semi-finals he won in straight sets against Robby Ginepri to reach his first ever ATP tour final. In the final, he fell to Sam Querrey in 3 sets.

In the second round of the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida, he beat Novak Djokovic 7-6(1) 3-6 6-4 for his first ever win against a top 10 player.

At Wimbledon, Anderson and partner Robert Lindstedt of Sweden reached the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual tournament champions, Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjić.

Anderson also represented South Africa in the Beijing Olympics, defeating Komlavi Loglo before losing to Nicolas Kiefer 4-6, 7-6(4), 4-6 in the singles tournament and losing (with partner Jeff Coetzee) to Nicolas Almagro and David Ferrer of Spain 6-3, 3-6, 4-6.

2009

After a slow start to the year, he won the San Remo, Italy Challenger in May, beating Blaz Kavcic in the final 2-6, 6-2, 7-5.

At the AEGON Championships (Queen's Club, London), Anderson won three matches to qualify and then defeated #57 Fabio Fognini 6-3, 7-6(3) in the first round of the main draw before losing to #46 Sam Querrey in the second round.

Clothing

Kevin is sponsored by the new high performance tennis line Athletic DNA along with Robert Kendrick, Peter Luczak, Rajeev Ram, and Ryler DeHeart.

ATP Tour finals (1)

Singles runners-up (1)

No.	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score
1.	March 9, 2008	Las Vegas, USA	Hard	Sam Querrey	6–4, 3–6, 4–6

References

External links

• Kevin Anderson at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Anderson Recent Match Results
• Anderson World Ranking History
• Anderson College Profile