Great start for Venus and Routliffe at Roland Garros

Kiwis Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe have made strong starts to the French Open in Paris.

Venus who won the 2017 doubles title with American Ryan Harrison, has had a comfortable first round win, reuniting with his regular partner, German Tim Puetz. The 7^th seeds have beaten Aussie James Duckworth and Belarussian Ilya Ivashka 6-2 6-4 in 57 minutes.

Venus and Puetz broke Duckworth’s serve in the third game and again in the 7^th game to power through the opening set in 20 minutes, a set in which they didn’t lose a single point on serve.

The second set was much closer and Venus had to rally from 0-30 in his opening service game to hold. But Ivashka dropped serve in the 9^th game and it was left to Venus to serve out the match.

Erin Routliffe playing at Roland Garros for the first time (aside from in juniors) and teaming up with Polish partner Alicja Rosolska made an impressive start. They have knocked out 16^th seeds, American Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Aussie Ellen Perez, winning 6-2 7-5 in an hour and 18 minutes. Routliffe and Rosolska raced to a 5-1 lead in the first set and were never threatened on serve closing out the opener in 25 minutes, converting two break point chances.

The second set was much tighter featuring multiple breaks of serve. Routliffe had to dig deep in the 10^th game saving two set points from 15-40 to hold and get back to 5-5. Routliffe and Rosolska got the vital break in the next game which left Rosolska to serve out the match.