AB de Villiers believes Champions Trophy presents SA with the "ideal opportunity" of improving their record on the world stage.

Despite being the No. 1-ranked team in both Test and one-day cricket, the Proteas have struggled to win any tournaments under the International Cricket Council banner.

They reached the Champions Trophy semi-final on every occasion apart from 2004, but their solitary win came way back at the 1998 edition in Bangladesh.

Their World Cup record makes for equally gloomy reading - in five tournaments they appeared three times in the final four - while De Villiers and his team blew their World Twenty20 chances at the same stage earlier this year, even though they were favourites.

"We came short a few times, but there are many players in the team that are eager to improve," the middle-order star told Beeld.

"We believe we are the best team in the world and now is a good chance to prove that.

"It's the ideal opportunity."

The South African team are currently in Potchefstroom attending a training camp ahead of the September 22 to October 5 tournament to be played in Pretoria and Johannesburg and De Villiers revealed that they have been made to sweat.

He continued: "It's the hardest I have trained with this team. We run three or four times every day, attend net sessions, sweat in the gym and work on our fitness in the pool.

"We have not played much cricket in recent times, but have a few training games behind us. I believe we are all professional enough to gear ourselves mentally for the tournament."