Making inroads
Wimbledon men’s final day makes for quite the gathering, more than 8,000 miles away where the Sunday barbecue – or braai as it’s known in South Africa – is fired up.
Former player and now commentator Robbie Koenig remembers it well back in Durban. His countryman Kevin Curren’s run to the 1985 final set the tone for this annual ritual.
Despite having recently taken US citizenship – “he’s still very much a South African at heart,” said Koenig – Curren had beaten future champion Stefan Edberg, world No.1 John McEnroe, and world No.3 Jimmy Connors in succession before falling to a then 17-year-old Boris Becker in that final.
Thirty-three years later, Kevin Anderson’s exploits in reaching this year's decider against Novak Djokovic has reignited the passion.
“It’s right up there,” Koenig said of Anderson’s run. “Wimbledon is front and centre. Back in the day, the Australian Open was at a funny time of the year, it wasn’t always shown on the television so Krieky’s [Johan Kriek’s] two Australian Open titles didn’t get as much coverage as Kevin [Curren]’s final against Becker, and his [1983] semi-final run there when he lost to Chris Lewis.
“It was an occasion. Everybody came around to your house and the barbecue stopped at 1.50pm while everybody crowded around the black and white TV to watch a Wimbledon final, so it was massive back in those days. Couple this with the fact a lot of those guys we were seeing on TV were coming to South Africa to play. It put tennis front and centre.”
While African success at Wimbledon has largely come from South African-born players, others from Egypt, Zimbabwe and Tunisia, in particular, have made inroads on the lawns of the All England Club.
Egyptian success
Czech Jaroslav Drobny represented Egypt when he defeated Ken Rosewall for the 1954 title, but the most famous Egyptian-born player at SW19 was Ismail El Shafei, one of only four men who managed to beat the great Bjorn Borg. El Shafei, a junior champion in 1964, defeated Borg in straight sets en route to the quarter-finals in 1974, a matter of weeks after the Swede had won Roland-Garros.
Until Anderson’s late blossoming to become a dual Grand Slam finalist, Wayne Ferreira was the last South African making inroads on the big stages in the early 1990s. The former world No.6’s best run at the All England Club was to the quarter-finals in 1994.
South Africa’s former world No.3 Amanda Coetzer tasted far greater success at the other slams but her compatriot Liezel Huber won the ladies' doubles twice in the mid-2000s with Zimbabwe’s Cara Black, before becoming a US citizen.
The youngest of the three Black siblings on tour, Cara triumphed three times at the England Club. Older brothers Byron and Wayne featured regularly in the second week of the doubles, with Byron also having reached a singles quarter-final in 2000. Their fellow Zimbabwean Kevin Ullyett was a Wimbledon doubles runner-up in 2008.
I’m very proud to represent the Arab world, or Tunisia
For a nation with next to no tennis history, Morocco boasted three men ranked in the top 25 during the early 2000s, but four-time Grand Slam quarter-finalist Younes El Aynaoui, the “Moroccan Magician” Hicham Arazi and Karim Alami never made the second week in a Wimbledon main draw.
Alami did win the boys’ doubles title with Greg Rusedski in 1991, however. Algerian Lamine Ouahab, who now represents Morocco, defeated Rafael Nadal en route to the boys’ singles final in 2002.
A doubles quarter-final in 2008, Selima Sfar was the original flag-bearer for Tunisian tennis at Wimbledon before Ons Jabeur cracked the top 100 last year. Having reached the second round at the All England Club, Jabeur and countryman Malek Jaziri have seen their profiles soar in a nation where it was “very hard to beat football”.
“I’m very proud to represent the Arab world, or Tunisia. For me it’s a very good example for the kids and the teenagers who want to one day play with the best players,” Jabeur said. “Many people they watched me [win her first-round match]. I’m very happy and I hope that I can continue and make Tunisians proud.”
After success in reaching the second weeks of slams throughout the 1980s to the early 2000s, the spoils have largely dried up for African tennis nations since. Under-resourced tennis federations struggle to invest at the grass-roots level across the continent, while the cost of travelling can be prohibitive.
“This is an expensive sport these days,” Koenig said. “Even from when I was playing the fact was we were able to have some funding so a group of about 12 or 15 of us could travel together with coaches.
“In Africa, in general, you’re competing against federations [outside the Continent] with huge amounts of money and then you’ve got our geography. There’s not a lot going on around us. We’re trying to get more of the smaller events, Futures and Challenger events.
“There is only one ATP event on the continent, in Casablanca (and one WTA event in Rabat, also in Morocco).
“Of course, having a South African Open back in the day was fantastic. You had Pat Cash coming after he won Wimbledon, Henri Leconte, so many great names used to come. And I think when you get to watch them up close and personal that’s what inspires you. That’s what inspired me when Jimmy Connors came to Durban and he was playing against the likes of Kevin Curren and Johan Kriek.”
The Anderson effect
Raven Klaasen featured in the gentlemen’s doubles final on Saturday and Kgothatso Montjane made history as the first black African woman to compete at Wimbledon, before losing in the semi-finals of the wheelchair singles.
“It just creates awareness on a massive scale,” Koenig said of Anderson’s breakthrough. “No amount of advertising can do that, the manner in which he beat Roger in the quarters, John Isner in the semis.
“Then Kevin carries himself after the match like an absolute champ. People are talking as much about how he was carrying himself in the post-match interview as his play so the impact was just massive at home.”
How far and for how long Anderson’s Wimbledon Fortnight will resonate across the African continent remains to be seen. But the man of the moment holds out high hopes.
“To be here in the finals, it's amazing. I've had so much support from home,” Anderson said. “I really hope that it's a source of inspiration for kids, just interest in tennis.
"South Africa does have a strong tennis history. We struggled over the last sort of decade or so… but I hope maybe somebody sits here in 10, 15 years' time and somebody asks him a question, and he says he watched me playing Wimbledon, that's one of the reasons he's here. That would definitely be great for me to hear.”