Tennis: Michael Venus to play 8th seeds in third round at French Open

Michael Venus ( NZL ) during the Men's Doubles final, Roland Garros, 10 June 2017. Copyright photo: Panoramic / www.photosport.nz

The respective third round opponents for Kiwis Michael Venus and Artem Sitak have been found at the French Open in Paris.

Both Kiwis will face seeded teams after the second round was completed overnight.

10th seeds Venus and South African Raven Klaasen will come up against the 8th seeds Croatian Nikola Mektic and Austrian Alexander Peya in the first match on court 3 from 9pm tonight.

Venus and Klaasen know them well having lost 6-7 (4) 6-3 10-8 to the pair at the Madrid Masters 1000 tournament last month. Peya and Mektic went on to win the title.

"They won the Madrid Masters so they are obviously comfortable on clay. But we have played them once and know what to expect so we will have to come out and play well." Venus said.

Sitak and his Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof have another day off before they face the 5th seeds Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah. It's the team who Venus and then partner Ryan Harrison beat in the semi-finals at Roland Garros last year.

The Colombians are in fine form having won the Italian Masters 1000 title late last month and losing in the semi-finals a week earlier in Madrid. They finished runner up at the Australian Open for their best Grand Slam result in January.

Meanwhile New Zealand's Erin Routliffe is set for another jump in the WTA doubles rankings after capturing the title with Mexican Victoria Rodriguez in the ITF Futures tournament in Hua Hin Thailand.

The 23 year old Kiwi and Rodriguez have beaten Thai third seeds Peangtarn Plipuech and Nicha Lertpitaksinchai 7-5 306 10-5 in the final.

The result is expected to see Routliffe climb from her current position of 136 to 122 in the rankings. She has won seven doubles titles so far in 2018.

Meanwhile Kiwi Rhett Purcell has captured his maiden ITF doubles title in China. Playing at the US 25,000 Futures tournament in Luzhou Purcell and Germany's Sami Reinwein have beaten the Philippine Chinese pair of Francis Alcantara and Sun Fajing 7-5, 6-3 in the final. Purcell now heads to Japan for another ITF 25,000 tournament next week.