Kevin Anderson beat Federer, won six-hour match and faced Djokovic in Wimbledon

In 2018, Kevin Anderson put together an extraordinary run to reach his second Grand Slam final at Wimbledon before losing to Novak Djokovic. Ranked No 8 in the world, he saved a match point to beat Roger Federer before winning a six-hour-and-38-minute epic against John Isner in the semi-final. Five years on, Anderson has reflected on the lessons he learned from that fortnight and exclusively told Express Sport how he managed to win five-set battles that had no end in sight.

“I’m appreciative for that experience. It was a lifetime of challenges and hard work overcome to make the finals and unfortunately just in my growth as a tennis player I wasn’t quite far enough to beat somebody like Novak Djokovic in the finals,” Anderson told Express Sport.

The South African enjoyed a glittering career before retiring in 2022 as he reached No 5 in the world, won seven titles and reached two Major finals – including Wimbledon in 2018. There, he pulled off the upset of the tournament, coming from two sets down and saving a match point to oust defending champion and then-world No 2 Federer in the quarter-final.

He won 13-11 in the fifth before following it up with a marathon 7-6(6) 6-7(5) 6-7(9) 6-4 26-24 win over Isner. While most tennis stars often say they go to every tournament expecting to win, Anderson confessed that that isn’t always the case – something players might only admit after retiring. “Going into it I was kind of the same for all tournaments which for me was cautiously optimistic,” he explained.

“For a lot of my career that mindset was beneficial, looking back at it I think everybody says that they go into it wanting to win the tournament and I think you’ll find that more people you ask that question to – especially post tennis if they’ve given it some thought – is I think very few. And I think the ones who really go into it thinking they can win it is someone like Novak Djokovic. And I really appreciate the quality of that mindset now much more than I did at the time.” 

It wasn’t until Anderson defeated Andreas Seppi and Philipp Kohlschreiber in his second and third-round matches at SW19 that he found more belief in his game. “And that was a tournament where I was able to take that with me into the next few rounds and make it through to the finals,” he added.

Anderson is very thoughtful when reflecting on what he calls one of the most “valuable” results in his career – he says that other moments may have been just as meaningful but people “respect [his Grand Slam finals] the most by far because they understand the Grand Slams and they follow [them]”.

When it came to facing Federer, he said: “For me, it was just always challenging playing those top guys and I think for almost all the matches I’ve played against those guys, the match was almost lost before I even stepped onto the court. It would’ve taken something really remarkable given how nervous I was. I dealt with that. But that’s the challenge, that’s what makes it tough to play those guys.”

Anderson saved a match point at 5-4 in the third set when he was already two sets down and went on to win. But the crucial moment of belief came in the second set, even though he lost it. He said: “I felt that was the first time that I played him in a relaxed state and at match point my only thought was I need to win this next point.

“And that’s why, it wasn’t like something happened in that moment because I think if it did it would have been too short a period of time to really have that much of an impact. I feel like the reason I even had a chance of saving match point was because of my mindset shift at the beginning of the second set.”

Grand Slams now have first-to-10-point tiebreaks at 6-6 in the final set. But five years ago, Anderson had to win by two games or keep on playing until he did. After notching final set scores of 13-11 and 26-24 in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, the 37-year-old says he was never thinking about the fact that there was no end in sight.

“As a player out there, there’s just so much going on. So the fact that there’s no [end to] the fifth set, you’re really not going to change anything. If anything, it serves as a distraction,” he said. “At no time did it matter to me what the score was. There was times where I didn’t even remember whether it was 14-14 or 18-18.”

Anderson also served second in the final set of both matches – meaning that even when he broke, he still had to close it out himself – but he wasn’t thinking about that. “The goal is to make it feel exactly the same. That’s what focus and attention and all this talk about mental toughness – that’s what it’s for,” he explained.

“You’re thinking, ‘It can’t just be that simple just like everything else in the match. There’s so much going on that surely you’re thinking about something else.’ And when you’re out there, you’re just trying to do the opposite, you’re trying to keep it simple as you can and that’s the challenging thing. We confuse simple and easy often and so as simple as it sounds, it’s really what you’re trying to do.”

Wimbledon was Anderson’s second Grand Slam final in under a year as he contested the championship match at the US Open in 2017 and lost to Rafael Nadal – but he went into the match off the back of a six-hour battle that almost ruled him out of playing.

“Looking back at it, going into my second Slam final there might have been some layer of the US Open in terms of the experience of playing the final but certainly – in the way I felt going on the court against Novak – it could have been almost my first final for all intents and purposes,” he admitted.