Tennis: Kiwi to kick off ATP World Tour Finals in London

Michael Venus. Photo / Doug Sherring

New Zealand's Michael Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen will kick off the ATP World Tour finals in London on Sunday night.

The doubles groups have been announced for the season ending tournament with Venus and Klaasen the 6th seeds and included in the Llodra/Santoro group which will play on the opening day.

They have been pitted against 2nd seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah of Colombia, fourth seeds Jamie Murray of Britain and Brazilian Bruno Soares and 7th seeded Croatian Nikola Mektic and Austrian Alexander Peya.

Venus and Klaasen will play the first match of the tournament against Murray and Soares who they have beaten once and lost to twice this year.

Last year the Kiwi playing with American Ryan Harrison won all three round robin matches before losing in the semi finals.

The top two teams in each group advance to the semi finals.

Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, who have clinched the year-end No. 1 ATP Doubles Team Ranking lead Group Knowles/Nestor.

Henri Kontinen and John Peers, winners of the ATP Finals title for the past two years, will serve as doubles alternates at the season finale.

It's a lucrative end to the season for Venus who has so far earned $543,000 US dollars in prize money after reaching the Wimbledon final and final of the Toronto Masters 1000 tournament. Each pair earn $100,000 USD as an appearance fee in London with $38,000 US for each round robin win. A semi final match win would earn $103,000USD and winning the final $200,000.

Going through the tournament unbeaten would earn the pair $517,000 USD.

Doubles – Group Knowles/Nestor

[1] Oliver Marach (AUT) / Mate Pavic (CRO)
[3] Lukasz Kubot (POL) / Marcelo Melo (BRA)
[5] Mike Bryan (USA) / Jack Sock (USA)
[6] Pierre-Hugues Herbert (FRA) / Nicolas Mahut (FRA)

Doubles – Group Llodra/Santoro

[2] Juan Sebastian Cabal (COL) / Robert Farah (COL)
[4] Jamie Murray (GBR) / Bruno Soares (BRA)
[6] Raven Klaasen (RSA) / Michael Venus (NZL)
[7] Nikola Mektic (CRO) / Alexander Peya (AUT)