Tennis: Kiwi Michael Venus to play Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon

Michael Venus. Photo / Photosport

Michael Venus will play against two-time singles grand slam champion Lleyton Hewitt in the first found of the doubles at the Wimbledon championship next week.

Venus and his American partner Raven Klaasen are the 13th seeds for the third grand slam of the season and at Friday's draw they came out next to Hewitt and his Australian team-mate Alex Bolt.

Hewitt and Bolt were given a wildcard into the tournament.

Venus is undaunted about playing against one of the modern legends of the game and will draw upon the match he and Klaasen played against Hewitt and Bolt in the Netherlands recently, which they won 7-5 7-5.

"We played them a few weeks ago in s-Hertogenbosch so we know what to expect, but it is the same for them," Venus said.

"So we are going to have to be ready to go."

At Hewitt's age, he's going to be a long way off the player he was at the peak of his career 14 years ago but with doubles, a player can be competitive at the top level for much longer as speed around the court is less of a factor.

"Lleyton's playing well," Venus said.

"Anyone who's been No 1 in the world in singles is probably going to be hitting a very good ball.

"They showed that by beating the guys who won the French Open in the first round in Queens (Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut).

"He's got great returns, he knows the game really well, so we're going to have to figure out how we want to play, the things we want to do and go about it."

The 37-year-old Hewitt, who won the US Open in 2001 and Wimbledon the following year, retired as a singles player in 2016, but late last year announced he would play again as a doubles specialist.

At this year's Australian Open he partnered with Sam Groth to make it to the quarterfinals, a run which included a victory over the third seeds Jean-Julian Rojer and Horia Tecau.

Given Hewitt's profile, the match is sure to be put on one of the bigger courts at Wimbledon.

"With his name, it will probably get a bit more publicity," Venus said.

"So I wouldn't be surprised if it's on a slightly bigger court.

"But in saying that, at the beginning of the first week when there are so many singles matches to be played, that it will be on a really big court.

"We'll see where they put us, but it's the same distance on the court to where the net is, so it doesn't really matter."

Meanwhile, Marcus Daniell and his Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof have been drawn against Indian qualifiers Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan.

Artem Sitak and Divij Sharan from India have managed to avoid any of the seeds and will play Jaziri Malek from Tunisia and Radu Albot in the first round.

In the ladies draw, Erin Routliffe, who came through qualifying with Alexa Guarachi from Chile will have to beat the third seeds from the Czech Republic Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova to make it to the second round.

The doubles starts on Wednesday, two days after the singles matches begin.