-Chicago, Illinois
Kevin Anderson played some phenomenal tennis and exacted some revenge for his loss to Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon Final.
In a highly entertaining match on Saturday night at the United Center it was Anderson who put two important points on the board with a 7-6 5-7 10-6 win over the No. 3 player in the world.
Anderson came out strong from the start perhaps inspired by playing in front of the Chicago crowd. He attended college here after moving from his home in South Africa.
Anderson had 19 winners in the first set which included some solid play from the baseline. Two of those shots came in the opening set tiebreak. The best of the bunch a brilliant cross court forehand to give him a 6-5 lead. Djokovic then doubled away the set on the next point.
The second set was highly contested as well and included a huge rally in the eighth game won by Djokovic after a crosscourt winner. The only break from either player in the match came in the 11th game when Anderson hit a backhand long one of his 38 unforced errors in the match. Djokovic held a game later to even things up.
In the tiebreak Anderson got out to an early 3-1 but Djokovic came back to go up 4-3. A big crosscourt forehand and a huge serve put Anderson in the drivers seat up 7-5. Two points later, the 6’8, World No. 9 crushed a huge forehand service return which the 14-time Grand Slam champ couldn’t reach. On match point Djokovic hit a forehand into the net giving Anderson the win and seeing Djokovic lose for the first time in singles since the third round in Toronto in early August.
“Right from the beginning I was feeling really good,” said Anderson. “I was serving well, I was staying in points a lot and doing all the things I needed to do against him. I thought all in all it was a really high quality match.”
“I enjoyed it. The atmosphere was electric, said Djokovic. “I got to experience the Laver Cup at it’s best in my singles today. I tried, I gave it my best but Kevin was playing fantastic, playing amazing, serving amazing, just brilliant match, brilliant performance he deserved to win.”
Team Europe closed the gap in the competition even further as Nick Kyrgios and partner Jack Sock got a routine straight sets win over Grigor Dimitrov and David Goffin 6-3, 6-4 in the final match of the night.
So after things weren’t looking so good after two more singles defeats earlier in the day, Team World has closed the gap to 7-5 heading into the final day. On Sunday, starting with doubles, each match win is worth three points so the Laver Cup is fully up for grabs.
@Sportshorn
