Lloyd Harris is one of the hottest players in tennis right now.
In Saturday’s opening match of the South Africa vs. Venezuela Davis Cup series, he will facing one of the coldest!
Harris, fresh off summer wins over Rafael Nadal and a run to the U.S. Open quarterfinals, will open the best-of-five match series at the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills against Venezuela’s Brandon Perez, a player who posted a 1-12 record in singles as a college player playing No. 2, 3 and 4 singles for the University of Nebraska last season.
“It’s a crazy opportunity,” said Perez, “You don’t get these type of matches very often. I’m just like going in there and live in the moment”
Harris is ranked a career high No. 31 on the ATP computer while Perez is ranked No. 1,921. It’s about as wide a discrepancy in rankings as you can have in pro tennis.
Following the Harris – Perez match, Ricardo Rodriguez, Venezuela’s No. 1 player, will play the No. 2 nominated player from South Africa, Phillip Henning.
Henning has no ATP ranking and is currently the No. 2 returning player from the University of Georgia’s team. South African Davis Cup captain Christo Van Rensburg said that Henning won the position by having the best challenge match record against other South African squad members Ruan Roelofse, Sipho Montsi and Lleyton Cronje.
“When I look at the new guys who came he is the highest ranked college player from South Africa,” said van Rensburg of Henning. “When I called some college people and I called people that was with him before on Davis Cup, he obviously had a little edge in arriving here, but I told everyone, ‘You’re gonna play for that spot,’ so that’s why I brought them in Friday and we had about five, six days for them to play against each other and I gave everyone a fair chance. Because of COVID, some players couldn’t play, some went to South Africa, some might have been injured, so that spot was open. They all knew when they arrived and he had the best winning record of everyone on my team.”
The best of five match series concludes Sunday with the doubles rubber followed by the No. 1 singles facing off, followed by the No. 2 singles players playing the final match. The South Africa vs. Venezuela contest is the first Davis Cup match to be played at the historic Forest Hills Stadium since 1959, but is closed to the general public, as directed by Tennis South Africa, the designated home promoter of the tie.
