South Africa tennis has a new bright young star to celebrate after Connor Doig and his Bulgarian partner Dimitar Kisimov won the Australian Open junior boys doubles title in Melbourne.
The duo proved too much for the Australian wildcard pairing of Ymerali Ibraimi and Cooper Kose, winning 6-3, 6-4.
Doig, who became the first South African to win the Australian Open junior boys doubles title title, said: “We never expected to be in the final first of all. We took it one match at a time. We knew anything could happen right from the first match.
“We played it point by point. Anything can happen in tennis. We just kept doing what we could.
“The final had more pressure, but we just tried to keep it simple. We kept our winning strategy of focusing on each point by point.”
He later spoke about how they dealt with the early match nerves.
“We made improvements after each match. When we started the tournament we knew that we had a long way to go in terms of our understanding in doubles.
“We worked on who we are as tennis players and our identities on the tennis court. We worked really hard and credit to our coaches. They worked hard to make sure that we were as best prepared as possible.
“They made sure that we learned after every match, and we built this up over the tournament.”
There have only ever been two previous times when a South African has won a title at the Australian Open. In 1981 and 1982 Johan Kriek won the men’s singles title, albeit when the field wasn’t as stacked as it is nowadays.
It is the first time that a South African junior has ever won a title – singles or doubles – at the Australian Open.
“That feels unreal,” Doig said.
The last South African finalist at the Australian Open was Donald Ramphadi in the Quad wheelchair doubles. Before that, Raven Klaasen was a runner-up in the men’s doubles in 2014. Also in 2014, Lucas Sithole was a runner-up in the Quad wheelchair singles.
In the junior boys singles, Wesley Whitehouse was a runner-up in 1997.
Photo: Getty Images (Doig in white)
