Routliffe, Venus mean business in Wimbledon mixed doubles

Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe might look like they’re having a whale of a time playing mixed doubles together at Wimbledon, but they say they’re deadly serious about going as far as they can.

It was another outstanding day for New Zealand tennis at Wimbledon on Monday. It started off with Venus and Neal Skupski advancing to the men’s doubles quarterfinals, thanks to their 7-5 6-3 win over the Americans Chris Eubanks and Evan King.

That was followed by Routliffe and Venus defeating Gabby Dabrowski and Harri Heliovaara 6-4 6-4 in the mixed doubles. Incredibly, New Zealand players have a record of 13 wins and one loss so far at this year’s Wimbledon. 

Routliffe and Venus looked impressive in their first-round doubles win and while they were plenty of smiles between the two Kiwis, Venus says this is also serious business.

“I think every time we’ve played, we’ve really enjoyed being on court together,” Venus said.

“We’re out there thinking through things and trying to get the win, but we’re also able to talk about other things, keep it quite light and enjoy our time out there.

“So from my side, it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve really enjoyed it.”

Venus said there was an added element to this match, in that Routliffe was up against Dabrowski, her usual partner.

“They were a tough team and it was awkward for Erin to play Gabby, because you know each other’s games inside out,” he said.

“But I thought we did really well, considering that when we got on the court, we decided to play on the opposite sides to what we did in Paris and it wasn’t until after the toss that we decided that.

Routliffe also said it’s enjoyable to team up with Venus.

“I really enjoyed playing with Mike,” she said.

“We’re learning about each other and it’s nice to be able to talk and figure out the match when we’re on court together. It’s been really fun.”

Routliffe and Venus are the No 2 seeds at Wimbledon and although they’ve both won Grand Slam titles, they’ve yet to do this in mixed doubles.

But with their ranking and form, they have got to be considered the team to beat over the second week of Wimbledon.

“The reason why we’re the No 2 seeds is because of where Erin’s ranking is! I’m not being seeded two with anyone else,” laughed Venus.

“At the end of the day we’re playing a grand slam and if you’ve got an opportunity to do well, go deep and potentially hold a grand slam trophy, then you’re super excited and it’s something you’ll remember and have forever.

“We enjoy playing together and it might seem like it’s a bit more light-hearted than our normal doubles, but don’t get me wrong, we’re out there trying to figure it out and trying to win.

“Ultimately, we’d love to be holding the trophy and that’s definitely the goal. But like our other matches, we’ll take one point at a time.”

Routliffe and Dabrowski will play their third-round match in the ladies’ doubles first up on Court 18 on Tuesday and will be up against Marta Kostyuk and Elena-Gabriela Ruse. 

Routliffe hopes it will be a better experience than their last match against Irina Khromacheva and Kamilla Rakhimova which took three days to complete because of the bad weather.

“It was terrible,” remembered Routliffe. 

“Obviously our opponents had to do it as well and there were a lot of other matches that were in the same situation. 

“Over the first two days we knew we probably weren’t going to get on the court. Then on Sunday, it was weird, we’d get on court for 30 minutes and then get off.

“We had a lot of opportunities to get a break in the second set and get off, but that didn’t happen and we made it difficult for ourselves.

“But I think we did a good job of staying together, fighting through it and in the big moments we were pretty clutch.

“It was tough to play with the rain on and off, but I’m thankful we got through it and live another day.”

Later on Court 18 on Tuesday Routliffe and Venus will play their second-round doubles match against British wildcards Henry Patten and Olivia Nicholls.