Rain halts Venus's Wimbledon doubles run

Michael Venus. Photosport

Rain has stopped play at Wimbledon with New Zealander Michael Venus's doubles quarter-final finely poised.

Venus and American partner Ryan Harrison, the French Open champions, are an hour and 40 minutes into their match against top seeds Henri Kontinen of Finland and Australian John Peers.

Kontinen and Peers took the first set 6-4 before Venus and Harrison grabbed the second in a tiebreaker 7-6 (7-5).

The top seeds took a 4-1 lead early in the third, but lost their next serve on a double fault as Venus and Harrison regained momentum to trail 4-3 with the set back on serve as rain closed in.

Compatriots Marcus Daniell and Artem Sitak have both been knocked out of contention in the doubles, suffering third-round defeats.

Sitak and American partner Nicholas Monroe battled for over two hours before Marcin Matkowski (Poland) and Max Mirnyi of Belarus closed out a 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4 win.

Daniell and Brazil's Marcelo Demoliner worked even harder in their match against Neal and Ken Skupski.

It took five minutes shy of three hours, but the British brothers eventually triumphed 7-6(7-3) 5-7 7-6(9-7) 6-4.

Venus is also juggling a mixed doubles campaign with Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic.

The pair are through to the third round after beating Mikhail Elgin (Russia) and Anastasia Rodionova (Australia) 4-6 6-3 6-4, and face a tough challenge against second seeds Bruno Soares of Brazil and Elena Vesnina (Russia).