Venus and Daniell win through to second round of Olympic Doubles

New Zealand’s Michael Venus and Marcus Daniell are safely through to the second round of the men’s doubles at the Olympics.

They have beaten the Belarussian pair of Eger Gerasimov and Ilya Ivashka 6-3 7-6 (6) in one hour and 17 minutes. Venus and Daniell were dominant on serve, didn’t face a break point, and only dropped eight points on serve in the match. There was just one break of serve in match with Gerasimov broken in his opening service game and despite putting the Belarussians under immense pressure on serve, the Kiwis were unable convert any more of their eight break point chances.

Venus and Daniell clinched the first set in 23 minutes but their failure to break despite being the dominant team in the second meant the set would go to a tie break.

Venus and Daniell led 3-1 and 4-3 but when the Belarussians went 5-4 up the Kiwis needed a couple of good service points from Venus and they delivered to bring up a first match point on their opponents serve. That was saved but Venus and Daniell had another match point this time on Daniell’s serve and he converted. The second set had taken 53 minutes and Daniell and Venus will lament their failure to convert any of their six break point chances. But they have advanced to the last 16 in the men’s doubles.

While the Belarussian’s were a pair of singles players without much double’s pedigree, it will get much tougher for the Kiwi duo in the second round. They come up against the Dutch duo of Jean-Julien Rojer and Wesley Koolhof, who is a former partner of Daniell. The match will take place on Monday evening, probably around 6pm NZT. Koolhof is ranked 14^th and Rojer 27^th in the individual double’s rankings compared to Venus at 20 and Daniell at 49.