Kiwi Michael Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen have captured their second ATP 500 title of the year at the Citi Open in Washington DC and are now the number two ranked doubles pair in the world.
The third seeds have beaten Dutchman Jean-Julien Rojer and Romania's HoriaTecau 3-6,6-3 10-2. After splitting sets with one service break apiece Venus and Klaasen played a quite sensational tie break to win the title.
Venus and Klaasen started superbly in the match tie break with the South African showing great touch at the net to win the opening point on Tecau's serve and then Venus held both his serves for a 3-0 lead. Klaasen then hit a lovely return to extend to 4-O. They changed ends with the 3rd seeds leading 5-1.
After serving an ace, Klaasen then hit a backhand return of service winner to extend the lead to 7-1. Some huge serving from Venus brought up seven match points at 9-2 and Klaasen then finished the match off with another backhand winner.
The victory is their third ATP title together they will both move to career high rankings when the ATP rankings come out later today.
Venus will be ranked eighth and Klaasen just ahead of him at seven.
They are on track to make the ATP Finals in London for the second straight year together having climbed to second in the race, moving ahead of the world's most well-known team, the Bryan brothers Bob and Mike. Venus and Klaasen have been incredibly consistent in recent months with their Halle title win, reaching the Wimbledon semifinals and now the Washington title.
Due to Visa problems for Klaasen getting into Canada they aren't able to play this week's Montreal ATP Masters 1000 tournament together however.
Venus is instead teaming up with Artem Sitak's former partner Austin Krajicek and they are unseeded. They face the Austrian pair of Jurgen Melzer and Oliver Marach in the first round. Venus and Klaasen will resume their partnership the following week in Cincinnati in their final hit out before the US Open.
The other Kiwi in Montreal is Marcus Daniell who has teamed up with Serbia's Laslo Djere. They will face Canadian wildcards Peter Polansky and Brayden Schnur.
