Tennis: Mike Venus wins through to second round at the French Open

Michael Venus. Photo / Photosport.

It's taken him four years but Michael Venus has finally won a match at the French Tennis Open.

New Zealand's top ranked doubles player and American partner Ryan Harrison have fought back from a set down to beat Argentine Diego Schwartzman and American Francis Tiafoe 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in one hour and 11 minutes.

Venus hadn't won a set in three previous appearances at Roland Garros and that trend continued after being broken at the start of the match.

Venus and Harrison went on to lose the first set 6-3.

"I am really happy it was definitely a dicey start." Venus said. But we managed to get over the hurdle and got a bit of momentum in the second set and started to play a bit better and settle into our game, so am really happy to be in the next round."

Venus and Harrison broke early in the second set and gradually got on top of the duo who had both played five set singles matches the previous day.

"It was just execution, we were giving too many free points away but I have to give credit to them, they also played some great shots. We changed some of our tactics and it worked well in the end so I am really excited."

Venus and Harrison could potentially face the fourth seeds Lukas Kubot and Marcelo Melo in the second round. They play their first round match tomorrow.

"The last three years I have been looking at flights about this time to get out of here, so it is nice to be here a bit longer, but plenty of work to do so I need to get out onto the practice court and fix some things."

Marcus Daniell and Artem Sitak open their campaigns overnight.

Daniell and Brazilian partner Marcelo Demoliner have been pitted against the 7th seeds, Croatian Ivan Dodig and Spaniard Marcel Granollers.

Sitak and his American partner Nicholas Monroe open against the 12th seeds, Poland's Marcin Matkowski and Frenchman Eduard Roger Vasselin.

Matt Brown is in Paris thanks to Emirates Airline