By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday July 20, 2023
Kevin Anderson's second career is underway and the South African is pain free and ready to compete.
Photo Source: Getty
By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday July 19, 2023
When Kevin Anderson retired from tennis in May of last year, he told the world: “I’ve had ups and downs, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. My journey helped me become the man who I am today.”
Just over a year later, Anderson is back to continue his growth as a person.
After reaching the quarterfinals at the Hall of Fame Open in Newport (first round: defeated Canada’s Gabriel Diallo, 6-3, 6-2 | second round: defeated Gijs Brouwer 6-3, 7-6(6) in his first match since last year’s Miami Masters, the South African, a former World No.5, is back on his way up the ATP rankings.
Whether the 37-year-old makes the Top 10 or not is not as important. What is important is to learn more about himself.
“Coming back now, honestly, there's a lot of uncertainties,” he told Andrew Eichenholz of the ATP Tour. “I don't have a ranking, I'm relying on potentially getting a few wild cards during the summer. So I'm going to come out and compete, for sure.
“But to be honest, the result isn't my primary goal. The primary goal is really to learn through this process. There'll be a lot of different challenges to face along the way that I'm really kind of keeping my eyes focussed on and there's a lot of experiences that you come across and as much as you can keep learning from them, I think that's one of the keys.”
Anderson, who won 354 matches and 7 ATP titles and reached two major finals, says that being pain-free is one of the key reasons he has elected to start a second career in the sport.
“When I retired, it was tough,” he said. “I was dealing with a lot of physical pain. Just a lot of parts of the body were really making it difficult to compete the way I wanted to, but also emotionally and mentally it was very challenging and I felt like I needed to stop playing.
"When I retired I didn’t know if I was going to play again or not. Most of last year I wasn’t planning to. But a couple months ago I started hitting again and just really enjoyed being out there.”