Cape Town - South Africa will be banking on the experience of doubles specialist extraordinaire Raven Klaasen and rising singles star Lloyd Harris for the upcoming Davis Cup tie against Estonia.
Announcing his team for the Euro/Africa Group 2 tie at the Irene Country Club at the beginning of next month, South African captain Marcos Ondruska also revealed Kia Motors South Africa will be supporting the team over the next year.
Ondruska named a six-member team that also included stalwart Tucker Vorster and Nik Scholtz, while Ruan Roelofse will partner with Klaasen.
“I am very excited about the team, I think it is a strong team, it is obviously great to have Raven in the side with his experience and we have young gun Lloyd Harris and for me he’s one of the most talented individuals out there in the game,” Ondruska said in a teleconference from the United States.
“I am excited about Nik Scholtz being part of the team, we tried a couple of times last year to have him part of the squad but it didn’t work out.”
Harris, who is South Africa’s top singles player, achieved a career-high singles ranking of 266 in November last year and recently won a record six consecutive Futures titles.
Ondruska believed the 19-year-old Harris, currently ranked 284th in the world, has a bright future.
“He worked really hard in the off-season, and his current ranking is a good place for him to be,” Ondruska said.
“If he can move up another 40 spots, he’ll get into Grand Slam qualifiers, and I can see him causing some serious damage at one of the Grand Slams, sooner rather than later.
“For me as the Davis Cup captain, and for South Africa as a whole, we should be very excited about the season that lies ahead for him.”
Klaasen reached a career-high ninth in the ATP doubles rankings in July 2016 after featuring in the semi-finals of Wimbledon with American partner Rajeev Ram.
The country’s most celebrated doubles player reached another major milestone when the American-South African combination narrowly missed out on the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals title where they lost to Finland’s Henri Kontinen and Australia’s John Peers 2-6, 6-1, 10-8.
“I think it is going to be a tough tie, it is not going to be what happened at Irene Country Club last year, these guys are better, their number one (Jurgen Zopp) used to be in the top 100 so he is a very experienced player,” Ondruska said.
“We are definitely going to have a tougher tie, it is a good thing, we want to make up to the World Group which is the goal of this whole thing that is why we are stepping up our preparations.”
Ondruska said he had spoken to Kevin Anderson and hinted that South Africa’s highest world-ranked tennis player could make a return to the Davis Cup some time in the future.
“I have spoken with Kevin, and it is a bit of a wild card, it is definitely open which I am very excited about,” Ondruska said.
“There are a couple of factors here, number one is his injury, he is definitely more excited about Davis Cup than before, then it also depends on the schedule.”
Anderson, ranked 80th in the world withdrew from this year’s Australian Open, said he was still recovering from a hip injury he sustained last year.
An ankle, shoulder then hip injury side-lined Anderson during 2016, slipping down the global rankings after reaching a career-high 10th place in October 2015.