Michael Venus of New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images
Michael Venus of New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images
Top-ranked Kiwi doubles player Michael Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen will chase their second ATP World doubles title of the year on grass in the Netherlands tomorrow.
Venus and Klaasen have beaten Kiwi Artem Sitak and his Indian partner Divij Sharan 6-3 6-2 in the semi-finals ins-Hertgotenbosch after earlier in the day fighting back from a set down to win their rain-delayed quarter-final 2-6, 6-4 10-4 over Australia's Matthew Ebden and Tunisia's Malek Jaziri in 1 hr 10 min.
Venus and Klaasen had an hour and a half before their semi-final to freshen up and they came out firing. They broke to love in the third game and quickly raced to a 4-1 first set lead. However, Sitak and Sharan will rue their failure to convert five break point chances in the first set which they lost in 26 minutes.
Venus and Klaasen broke serve twice in the second set and held throughout to complete a comfortable straight sets victory in 52 minutes.
They didn't face a single break point in the second set and served at a high 73 per cent of first serves.
Earlier Klaasen struggled on serve in the quarter-final and was broken twice in the first set and also in his opening game of the second set after he and Venus had broken Jaziri to take a 2-0 lead. But they were able to break the Tunisian again to close out the set to level the match before running away with it in the match tie-break.
The second seeds will face third seeds Britain's Dominic Inglot and Hungary's Franko Skugor for the title after they edged the top seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo in a match tie-break.
"Being the first week of grass it is great to have got 3 matches in and we have another opportunity tomorrow. Each match we have got better and the things we are working on are coming out more and more during matches. We served well in the semi-final which allowed us to be free on the returns." Venus said.
"Inglot and Skugor are both big guys and have big serves so it is going to be important for us to focus on trying to take care of our service games and then see what we can do on the returns."
Despite the semi-final defeat, Sitak will be pleased with his first-up efforts in partnership with Sharan to start the grass court season. The Kiwi is projected to remain at his career high of 38 in the ATP doubles rankings and will be the new New Zealand number two next week with Marcus Daniell expected to slip from his current position of 36 to 40. Daniell returns from a lengthy injury break next week in Halle (Germany) with Wesley Koolhof, Sitak's former partner.
In February Venus and Klaasen won their first tournament title together on hard court in Marseille in France. Venus will rise from his current position of 25 to 22 in the doubles rankings if he can claim his 9th tour title tomorrow.
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