Michael Venus, Jamie Murray win first match at US Open

Michael Venus and Jamie Murray are into the second round of doubles at the US Open, having defeated Gonzalo Escobar from Ecuador and Kazakhstan’s Aleksandr Nedovyesov 7-6 7-6.

It was a match without any breaks of serve and in fact, Venus and Murray only had one break point opportunity during the entire match, which lasted two minutes short of two hours.

That break point came when Nedovyesov was serving at 2-3 in the opening set and from then on, he and Escobar were solid in their service games. 

But in the first set tiebreak, Venus hit a volley straight at Nedovyesov at the net, with his opponent unable to get his racquet to the ball. Later, on set point, Venus creamed a return to send the crowd into raptures.

In the second set tiebreak, Escobar put the ball into the net on Escobar’s serve and there was another huge return soon after from Venus to take the score to 6-2.

Even though the next point was lost, Murray finished it off with a big serve that couldn’t be returned.

“At that point anything can happen,” Venus said of tiebreaks. 

“It’s a matter of execution and trying to put a good first serve in, hopefully your partner is in a good spot and the return comes back to that guy and we can knock it off.

“We managed to get a few returns around the next guy, played some good points and held onto our serve.

“Maybe going forward we get a few more break points, we’re able to break and not have to play those tiebreakers, but it’s good to have those feelings when we’ve been in those situations where we’ve played well.”

A key factor in both tiebreaks was how Venus ripped winners when returning serves. To get points like that, at a crucial time in a match not only gives him and Murray a lift, it also demoralises their opponents.

“It looks good when it comes off, when it doesn’t, it doesn’t look good,” Venus said.

“I think that’s the good thing about our combination. I know Jamie makes a lot of returns and gets the balls in play, so it frees me up to be a bit more aggressive and take chances in those situations.

“I’ve been working hard on my returns for months now. I’ve changed a couple of things and it’s great that in those moments it paid off today.”