The Sunday Mail
KEVIN Anderson Kevin had plans for the Saturday night before the US Open final almost two weeks ago.
He was supposed to get together with some friends and alumni from the University of Illinois for a viewing party to watch the Fighting Illini take on Western Kentucky in Champaign, Illinois.
Subject to change, of course, if he went on a long run. Well, his plans did change, and he couldn’t be happier.
“It’s actually a good position that I’m in that I’m not able to attend,” Anderson said with a smile. “I think they’ll understand.”
As Anderson stood outside the locker room at Arthur Ashe Stadium, he was still processing what had just happened moments earlier on the court in his four-set victory Friday against Pablo Carreno Busta, who had not dropped a set heading into their match.
Anderson not only reached his first Grand Slam final in his 34th appearance, but became the lowest-seeded player ever at No. 28 to reach the singles final here. He’s also the first South African to reach the US Open final in the Open era.
Anderson also became the first player with college ties to reach a Grand Slam singles final since Todd Martin at the 1999 US Open, and if he finds a way to defeat Rafael Nadal tonight, Anderson will become the first ex-college player to win a major title since John McEnroe here in 1984.
“I really didn’t know too much about college tennis when I was in South Africa,” Anderson said to ESPN.com afterwards.
When Anderson was being recruited in 2004, coach Craig Tiley, who’s also from South Africa, had built Illinois into one of the best tennis programmes in America, recording an NCAA record 64 consecutive wins and winning the NCAA title in 2003.
“Something about Illinois really struck me,” Anderson said. “They had just won the NCAA title the year before, and Craig Tiley was very well known in South Africa. I didn’t know anything about the place or the city. I just wanted to go to the best tennis programme, and I was able to make a great decision.”
Tiley, who is now the CEO of Tennis Australia and the director of the Australian Open, was in the crowd Friday night to watch Anderson (31) and remembers the first time he saw him on a tennis court 15 years earlier.
“The first time I saw him, he was a junior player who was still learning and growing and putting it all together,” Tiley told ESPN.com. “He had unquestionable passion, and he already had professionalism as a young player, and he had the strong desire to excel.
“It was a no-brainer to recruit him. It was never easy to get players to come to Champaign, Illinois, but we had some good teams, and we prided ourselves on a programme that developed players that would go on to be professional players. It’s been great to see Kevin go on and have that success.”
The biggest moment of Anderson’s time in college, however, didn’t come on the tennis court.
It came when he met his wife, Kelsey, who was on the Illinois golf team at the time.
The two began dating and eventually married in 2011 with an Illini-themed wedding, which included a Fighting Illini-decorated cake and street sign.
“It’s impossible to recreate the relationships I made in college,” Anderson said. “I met my wife there, met my best friends there, the Illinois tennis community is like a family. I’m so close with everybody there. It changed my life in so many ways.”
By the time Anderson left Illinois, he was physically and mentally ready to be a professional, something he wasn’t prepared for when he arrived on campus.
Within six months of turning pro, he was a runner-up in the 2008 Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas to Sam Querrey and leaped into the top 100.
If Anderson’s journey ends with a Grand Slam title today, it will perhaps motivate others to follow a similar path. – ESPN.
