Venus and Puetz knock out second seeds to reach Paris Masters quarter finals

For the second time in a month New Zealand’s Michael Venus and his German partner Tim Puetz have knocked the world’s second ranked doubles team out of a Masters 1000 tournament. 

Venus and Puetz are through to the quarter finals at the Paris Masters after a 7-6 (12) 7-6 (6) win over second seeds Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram who they beat at the Indian Wells Masters last month. 

As the score suggests it was an extremely close contest lasting one hour and 56 minutes with no breaks of serve in the match. Venus and Puetz saved the only break point against their serve and their opponents were three from three on break point saves. 

They will face Frenchman Fabrice Martin and Germany’s Andreas Mies in the quarter finals after they upset the 7^th seeds Horia Tecau and Kevin Krawietz in their second-round match. 

Artem Sitak and partner Radu Albot are through to the semi finals at the ATP Challenger tournament in Bergamo in Italy. The third seeds have beaten the Bosnian pair of Damir Dzumhur and Nerman Fatic 6-4 7-5.

Ajeet Rai has lost his second round singles match at the ITF tournament in Monastir in Tunisia, going down 6-4 6-4 to top seed Skander Mansouri. But Rai and his Swiss partner Mirko Martinez are through to another doubles semi final after a 6-1 6-2 win over Russians Ivan Kazalov and Daniil Zhibul.

Kiranpal Pannu has lost his second round match at the ITF tournament in Fayetteville, Arizona to Britain's Henry Patten 6-4 6-3. Pannu had come through qualifying to make the round of 16.