Lloyd Harris paired with Raven Klaasen to beat Dimitri Badra and Luis David Martinez to clinch South Africa’s Davis Cup by Rakuten Group II series with Venezuela Sunday played at the historic West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills in New York.
The 6-2, 6-4 win for the South African tandem gave their nation the insurmountable 3-0 lead in the best-of-five match series in their eventual 4-0 victory.
Harris was a late substitute to play with Klaasen in an attempt to quickly close out the pesky Venezuelan squad. Klaasen was originally slated to play doubles with Ruan Roelofse.
“I wouldn’t say it was always the plan, but I think once we went two-zero up we try to be as clinical as possible finishing the tie,” said Harris of his late substitution into the doubles. “Also for future ties, you, never know what the situation is. And I’ve been playing a little bit more doubles, so we haven’t played together before. So we thought it was a great opportunity to get a match and under our belt.”
“We’ve tried to play together once or twice and it didn’t work out, so it was a good opportunity for us to see how things click out there and I think it worked pretty well,” said Klaasen, ranked No. 24 in the world in doubles three weeks away from his 39th birthday. “We were kind of always thinking about what’s the best chance was to win a match. So we take it day by day and we’ve discussed playing doubles before. So this opportunity worked out well.”
The ease of the Harris singles victory in the opening rubber – a 6-0, 6-0 win in just 38 minutes – also played in the decision to bring Harris back for the doubles.
“Obviously I played pretty well yesterday and didn’t have too physical match,” said Harris. “So that also played into our hands a little bit with me being very fresh to come up and play the doubles. And I mean, obviously the decision was a good one.”
Roelofse won the lone dead-rubber singles match played, defeating Badra in an entertaining affair 6-4, 7-6(5).
The series was originally slated to be a home match for Venezuela, but the South Africa and Venezuela national tennis federations negotiated to have South Africa be the host nation and they chose to host the tie at the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, the long-time home of the U.S. Championships and the U.S. Open. This series marked the first time Davis Cup was played at Forest Hills since 1959.
The matches garnered the attention of the New York Times, which featured the event in its Sunday newspaper as you can read here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/sports/tennis/davis-cup-forest-hills.html
Replay of the television feed of the matches can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8MbusBmNQw
More quotes from Klaasen and Harris can be found below.
QUESTION: What is it playing Davis Cup? Why do you play? Why is it important to you?
RAVEN KLAASEN: I mean, for the most part during the season, you’re playing individual sports, so the environment and the history of this obvious competition is quite unique. And I spent time as a youngster watching our older guys play Davis Cup and they kind of set the bar for us. And then we were trying to kind of leave our own mark on Davis Cup for South Africa, because every time you play a tournament, you do represent South Africa, but this is nice where you actually put the green and gold on and to have a team around you is a fun aspect of tennis.
LLOYD HARRIS: Yeah. I mean the same, I mean, it’s a great week where you get to spend some time with your fellow South Africans, get to train and compete together, have them on the side, supporting each other. And obviously, you have all of a sudden the whole of South Africa watching from back home. So it’s very special occasion. It’s, it’s unique from the rest of the tour, like Raven said.
QUESTION: Now you’ve been here about a month now….have you picked up any favorite spots in New York or anything? Well, you’re not going to say, but what have you guys been doing individually or as a team while you’ve been here?
LLOYD HARRIS: Yeah, no, I been here for a while. This is my fourth week. So I feel like I know New York a little bit better than I did ever before. But yeah, I definitely did get some spots, some breakfast spots and dinner spots that I really enjoyed. And other than that, I did go do some sightseeing and stuff with my girlfriend. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, no, it was also the last week we got to spend some time with the team for some guys that I don’t get to see every week. So yeah, it’s been a really good couple of weeks actually. I mean, if I take my result in the US Open, if I take us winning three-zero in Davis Cup, I mean, I’m very happy with how things turned out here.
QUESTION: So can we see probably in Australia you two guys playing together?
RAVEN KLAASEN: Well, I’ll be honest with you the way Lloyd’s playing singles now, I think he should prioritize that. But it certainly is promising, I think we knew it would be a pretty good team to get, he’s played a lot of doubles and we’ve known each other for a while. So to actually go out there and prove it is nice. And I mean, hopefully in the future we get out on court sometime, but like I said, he’s got some work left. Had it been for the singles. I want him to concentrate as hard as possible on that.
QUESTION: Is Anthony Harris your uncle?
LLOYD HARRIS: No, he’s not a relative of mine. It’s a big coincidence. He’s just my long time coach. And he’s a little bit like a dad or like family to me, definitely because we have a special relationship, but he’s not relative.
