By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
For Ricardo Rodriguez, the September 18-19 Davis Cup by Rakuten Group II Playoff match for his native Venezuela against South Africa is all about “why we play the game.”
Ranked No. 591 on the ATP World Tour and a career-player on the Futures and Challenger Tour, Rodriguez does not get the chance to play in major cities, at major venues and against the world’s very elite players very often if at all. He will get the opportunity to not only play in New York, but at the historic West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, the long-time historic home of the U.S. Open, and potentially against one of the hottest players in tennis this summer, Lloyd Harris of South Africa, a recent quarterfinalist at the 2021 U.S. Open, now ranked a career-high No. 31.
“When we were kids, we only dream,” Rodriguez said. “Our dream is to play at big stadiums, filled with people, places that have a lot of history and now here’s an opportunity to play a player (Harris) whose quality is of no point in doubt and in such an historic place in New York, right after U.S. Open. I think it’s one of those perfect scenarios.”
“At least for me, it’s a little bit of a prize, a little bit of a gift that pays for all the effort,” continued Rodriguez, who lives in Miami. “Being able to play in New York is going to make it double special so, I’m grateful for life giving me this opportunity.”
As Venezuela’s top player, Rodriguez will play South Africa’s No. 2 singles player on Saturday. With No. 68-ranked Kevin Anderson, a former U.S. Open and Wimbledon runner-up, continuing to not play Davis Cup for South Africa, the presumed No. 2 nominated singles player would be No. 787-ranked Ruan Roelofse.
“Ruan and me, we have a great relationship,” said Rodriguez, who won a doubles title on the ITF World Tennis with Roelofse in Antalya, Turkey in 2015. “We’ve known each other since a while ago. Ruan is such a great guy. I’m also excited to get to know the rest of the South African team.”
For Rodriguez, the ultimate opportunity would be to test his skills against Harris, who also defeated 20-time major champion Rafael Nadal earlier this summer in Washington, D.C. Should the best-of-five match series still not be decided after the first day’s singles and Sunday’s opening doubles match, the No. 1 player from each team will face off in the fourth of five matches, presumably setting up a match between Rodriguez and Harris.
“Oh, that challenge is one of the main reasons why I really wanted to play this tie,” Rodriguez said of potentially playing Harris. “I was lucky enough to get into the qualifying at the ATP 250 at Los Cabos and the amount of information that you receive from those types of matches is invaluable and having the chance to play against Lloyd after he did such a great run in the U.S. Open is definitely going to be great for me. Hopefully it’s going to be an inflection point in my career and like I said, I’m super excited about it. I’m looking forward to meeting all those guys and just have a good time in New York.”
While Rodriguez was on lockdown, like the rest of the tennis world in 2020, he decided to pass his time taking on-line courses offered by the International Tennis Federation, where he chose to take a course on the history of tennis. It was there were he first learned about the storied history of the West Side Tennis Club at Forest Hills, which hosted the U.S. Championships and U.S. Open from 1923 to 1977 and featured so many of the great champions of tennis such as Don Budge, Jack Kramer, Althea Gibson, Maureen Connolly, Rod Laver, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King and Chris Evert. The South Africa – Venezuela match is the first Davis Cup tie played at the West Side Tennis Club since the 1959 Davis Cup final between the USA and Australia.
“While we were in COVID I did the ITF courses and there was one course that I really liked and enjoyed that was history of tennis and they mentioned several times, Forest Hills and how it was kind of like a point of influence of tennis, not only in the United States, but also worldwide and being one of the first venues of the U.S. Open,” said Rodriguez. “After (learning more), I kind of like doubled my respect for the place and the amount of great people that have played in those courts and now I’m going to be one of those lucky guys that can say they played at that magnificent club so, it’s more than perfect. It’s more than enough. More than I can ask for so, it’s going to be even more special. Only at the beginning for playing against South Africa is special, but playing it in a venue like this with such a history in such a great city, it makes it double special.”
Venezuela’s No. 2 player for this series is Brandon Perez at No. 1,921 in the ATP rankings and also has Luis David Martinez, ranked No. 101 by the ATP in doubles. Dimitri Badra, a junior at East Tennessee State University, rounds out the four-player squad for Venezuela. Maurice Ruah, the former top 100 singles and doubles player, is Venezuela’s team captain.
In addition to Harris and Roelofse, South Africa will have world No. 24 doubles player Raven Klaasen, University of Illinois player Sipho Montsi, ranked No. 1,351, and unranked University of Georgia player Phil Henning on its roster. The captain of the South Africa team is Christo van Rensburg, the former top 20 singles player and 1985 Australian Open doubles champion with Long Island native Paul Annacone.
