South African doubles ace Raven Klaasen and his New Zealand partner Michael Venus have become the final team to qualify for the 2018 ATP Finals, to be held in London from 11-18 November.
Klaasen and Venus will make their team debuts at the tournament in their first season as a pair. The South African/Kiwi tandem have won one title at the Open 13 Provence in Marseille and also finished runner-up at four other tournaments.
They were runners-up at the Libema Open in ‘s-Hertogenbosch Netherlands, followed by Wimbledon. They continued their success on hard courts with a run to the final at the Rogers Cup, an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament in Toronto, and at the 500-level Japan Open in Tokyo.
Klaasen will be making his third appearance at the ATP Finals. The 35-year-old reached the championship match with American Rajeev Ram on his tournament debut in 2016, and stepped in to play a round-robin match as alternates last year. Venus qualifies for a second straight year. The New Zealand native won all three round-robin matches alongside Ryan Harrison in 2017.
Klaasen and Venus are tournament favourites at the ATP Swiss Indoors in Basel.
Meanwhile this week both Anderson and Klaasen are in the same world ranking positions as last week with Anderson ranked at No8 on the singles rankings and Klaasen No18 in the doubles rankings. Harris is also unchanged at No112 on the singles rankings.
Anderson remains a strong contender for the year-end ATP Finals in London next month, sitting at No7 on the race to London.
Photo: Raven Klaasen (left) and doubles partner Michael Venus from New Zealand, by ATP World Tour
