Kevin Anderson interview: World No 6 on not subscribing to labels, regaining belief in his game after injury-enforced hiatus and more

The Big Four, the Lost Generation of Tennis, the NextGen — tennis fans love to come up with various labels and monikers to categorise players into. Since the advent of the era of dominance led by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, a generation of players following the proverbial Big Four have had to battle expectations from tennis aficionados to replicate and build on their success.

A lot was expected from the quartet of Grigor ‘Baby Fed’ Dimitrov, Milos Raonic, Kei Nishikori and David Goffin to become the next Big Four but they fell woefully short of the lofty expectations. Despite showing immense promise, only Raonic and Nishikori made it to a Grand Slam final.

While the lost generation failed to live up to their promise, it was the group of players belonging to Nadal and Djokovic’s age group who broke the Big Four’s monopoly of Grand Slam titles. Juan Martin del Potro burst onto the scene as a 21-year-old in 2009 and beat Roger Federer in New York to win his first US Open title. Stan Wawrinka won the first of his three Grand Slam titles at the 2014 Australian Open and only needs a Wimbledon title to complete his career Grand Slam having the won the French Open (2015) and the US Open (2016). Marin Cilic got the better of Federer in the semi-final on his way to the title at Flushing Meadows in 2014. While the trio made their presence felt at the Grand Slam level, Kevin Anderson has just caught up with his peers.

Anderson, though, has stopped allowing himself to be weighed down by expectation. “We like to label people in categories, but from my side, it doesn’t really matter,” the World No 6 tells Firstpost on the sidelines of the 2019 Maharashtra Open.

He reached his first Grand Slam final in 2017 at the US Open becoming the oldest first-time Grand Slam finalist since 1973. A year on, he rallied past John Isner in the longest Grand Slam semi-final to reach his first Wimbledon final where he lost to a resurgent Djokovic. The South African ace ended the year by qualifying for his first year-ending ATP Finals.

While his peers like Cilic and Del Potro established themselves as players to watch out for, Anderson, in his own words, was taking smaller steps in the right direction. He won the first of his five ATP career titles in 2011 at the South African Open. Throughout the years, he has been a constant presence in the semi-finals and finals of ATP 250 and 500 level events and broke into the top-10 in 2015. But somehow, he could never reach his full potential at Masters and Grand Slam levels.

“It has been a slower progress and before that I was always improving my rankings and taking steps in the right direction. The one thing I was missing was a bigger result like making the final of a Grand Slam or winning a Masters or even reaching the final of a Masters. I never felt like I was stuck in the same spot,” Anderson says.

That slow yet steady progress was halted in 2016 as poor form and injuries saw him slip down the rankings to 77. He went out in the first round at the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon while reaching the third round at the US Open. His injury troubles forced him to skip the 2017 Australian Open but that was crucial in shaping his belief system.

“Since coming back, I’ve been pushing myself by looking for different ways in which I can improve mentally and also on the court.

“Maybe a little bit of it was a belief system. It took me some time to give myself belief and trust in my game to realise that I am good enough to beat anybody out on the tennis court and at any stage. I feel like in the last 18 months especially there has been probably the biggest change that has helped me make some big results,” Anderson says.

Anderson credits his spectacular return from injury to meticulous planning and not worrying about a repeat of 2016.

The last two years have seen Anderson focusing on getting the minutest of details worked out with his coaching team and getting his priorities sorted. That he is 32 and getting older does not affect his preparation as ultimately, it’s about what he can do to be a better player with each passing day. “There are going to be days where my progress might not be where I want it to be. So then the aim is to see how quickly I can get back on to that path. I feel like I have done a very good job of that over the last few years and that has helped me play better and better,” Anderson says.

In the last 18 months, Anderson has made it to the finals at the 2017 US Open and the 2018 Wimbledon Championships. He also reached the semi-finals at Madrid and Toronto. He won his biggest title till date at Vienna while also reaching the final in Washington in 2017.

2019 will be the test of Anderson’s steady progress. The trio of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic will be keen to re-establish their supremacy on the Tour following a couple of years marred by injuries. After an injury-riddled year, Wawrinka and Murray will be eager to get back to competing at the highest levels. And then there is the NextGen led by Alexander Zverev who will be eager to make their mark at the highest level.

Anderson, though, is unfazed by the challenge that awaits him.