Kevin Anderson is a famous South African tennis player who has won a number of professional competitions. In 2017, the athlete was among the finalists of the Grand Slam tournament.
Kevin was born in the spring of 1986 in the city of Johannesburg. His parents Michael and Barbara Anderson are engineers. The tennis racket was in the hands of the boy when he was 6 years old, and the youngest member of the family, brother Gregory, became his first rival on the court. It is not without reason that tennis is one of the five most popular sports in South Africa.
Thanks to the love of tennis that his father instilled in the boys, as well as years of hard training, the teenagers came to good results. For a long time they performed in their homeland as juniors, until they moved to the United States. There, in addition to receiving higher education, the brothers played for the student league and brought many victories to Illinois. In addition to the main sport, Kevin demonstrated success in athletics and the 800 meter running distance.
After graduation, Gregory was invited to work at the New York Tennis Academy, and Kevin began a professional sports career.
Professional sports
For the first time, 18-year-old Anderson was noticed in 2004 at the tournaments of the "futures" series. The debut was successful for the athlete. After 3 years, he has proven himself well in the Challenger series. The tennis player's successes allowed him to qualify for the ATP tournament grid and brought another victory at the American hard tournament and competitions in New Orleans.
In 2008, Kevin qualified for the Grand Slam Tournament in Australia, but was eliminated after the first round. However, after 2 months, the athlete rehabilitated himself and won a landslide victory at the final of the ATP tournament in Las Vegas. Not all of his appearances on the court were successful, but thanks to the qualification for the sum of seven consecutive matches won, Anderson made it to the final and ended up in the list of the Top 100 best tennis players in the world. At the tournament in Wimbledon, he managed to reach the quarter finals of the competition. The tennis player participated in the 2008 Olympic Games, which were held in the Chinese capital. And although the South African athlete in the individual competition dropped out almost immediately, in the doubles competition he reached the 2nd round.
In 2009, Kevin confidently won the clay Challenger in San Remo, since then the clay has been his favorite surface. During this period, the athlete was accompanied by failures, and his world ranking dropped to 161st place. But the very next year he won the Challenger on hard and was among the semi-finalists of Atlanta.
At the height of glory
2011 turned out to be a turning point for the tennis player. Besides the fact that the athlete became the best on the courts of Johannesburg, he won the ATP tournament for the first time. At the performances in Miami, Anderson reached the quarterfinals and took 32nd place in the list of the most successful tennis players on the planet.
2013 became the most successful in the athlete's biography. He made it to the final of the Australian championship, then became a finalist in Morocco and repeated his previous success in Atlanta. Kevin reached the 4th stage of Roland Garros and the 3rd round of Wimbledon. In terms of the sum of indicators, Anderson was in the top 20 players in the world.
In 2014, he made people talk about himself again by winning the ATP tournament in the USA. Excellent technique and a number of new successes have raised the tennis player to the 12th line of the world ranking.
The next two years were not very successful for the athlete. He was haunted by injuries, and victories alternated with defeats. At the Grand Slam competitions, the tennis player barely made it to the 3rd round, which instantly affected his rating. Kevin could not stay in the Top 50 and ended up in 67th place.
The athlete missed the start of the 2017 season, but reached the semifinals at the clay tournament in Estoril. At competitions in France, he reached the 4th round, and at the tournament in Washington, he reached the final for the first time and climbed to 15th place in the list of the best tennis players on the planet. In the US Open final, Anderson turned out to be the least titled athlete in the history of the tournament, which did not prevent him from showing a good result.
In 2018, the tennis player reached the final of the tournament in Pune and turned out to be the best in the New York competitions. He became a semi-finalist in the Madrid competition and had a successful start at the Wimbledon Championships. Once in the final, he became the first South African to achieve such a high score since 1985. According to the sum of the results of the year among the best rackets in the world, Anderson was on the 5th line.
The athlete opened the 2019 season with a victory at the tournament in Pune. After that he took part in the Australian Championship and reached the 3rd round of the Wimbledon Championship.
How does he live today
Anderson managed to dispel the myth of the wealthy tennis players. Looking back, we can say that the road to professional sports turned out to be thorny and winding for Kevin. Rising to the top of fame, he overcame many difficulties and obstacles, but used the chance that fate gave him. All his victories are the result of hard work. A feature of the athlete is his high growth - 203 centimeters, in connection with which the player was haunted by knee problems, which were later joined by several operations on the elbow, which affected the quality of the serve.
Today Kevin gratefully speaks of his father, who brought him into the sport and supported him all the time. Being a big tennis fan, Michael Anderson learned to play from books himself and began to coach children, dreaming of making them top players. His key decision was to send his sons to study, despite the fact that the family did not have enough money.
Now Kevin lives in the American town of the Gulf Stream in Florida and trains in one of the clubs in Chicago. It is known about his personal life that in 2011, the athlete tied the knot. Golfer Kelsey O Neil became his wife. The girl went in for sports during her student years, when she was in college, where she met her future husband. She received the profession of an accountant, but does not work in her specialty. The girl jokes that she prefers "to count her husband's money than strangers." The spouse is trying to create new projects with the spouse. At one time, she ran her website and blog Tour with Wife, trying to contribute to the support of the sport.
Kevin spends his free time reading books or playing the guitar. Car racing is also his hobby. Recently, the tennis player has been paying attention to environmental issues and advocating for reducing the use of plastic, including at such famous competitions as Wimbledon.
