Johannesburg – Despite bowing out in the fourth round of the men's singles against the Czech Republic's Tomas Berdych, South Africa's 22nd world-ranked Kevin Anderson served most aces at the recent Australian Open at Melbourne Park.
Anderson served 79 aces during his run at the Grand Slam event.
South African-born Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley revealed this in a report on Wednesday on the event that attracted approximately 650,000 spectators and boasted over R3.3 billion in prize money.
The over two metre tall Anderson played only four matches, while other players progressing further in the tournament competed in five, six, or seven matches.
At the same time, however, this suggested certain limitations in Anderson's repertoire might need to be improved in order to progress further up the world rankings ladder.
Anderson proclaimed his target for 2014 was to reach a world 15th ranking, but his loss to the seventh-ranked Berdych was the 10th successive defeat against the Czech player with a similar crunching serve.
Meanwhile, the Johannesburg-born Tiley has gone from strength to strength since becoming the Australian Open tournament director seven years ago after holding the position of South African Davis Cup captain from 1999 to 2002.
Both Australian Open men's singles finalists Stanislas Wawrinka and Rafael Nadal, proclaimed Tiley after their final as the best tournament director in the world and the Australian Open the best-organised of the four grand slam tournaments. – Sapa