Venus and Routliffe ready for the Cincinnati Masters

Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe are at the same venue this week as the ATP and WTA Tour’s come together at the Masters 1000 tournament in Cincinnati.

Venus and his German partner Tim Puetz are the sixth seeds in the ATP tournament and have been drawn against Argentine’s Diego Schwartzman and Francisco Cerundolo in the first round.

Venus and Puetz are coming off a first-round defeat last week in Montreal and will be keen to get back on track at another of the big Masters 1000 tournaments. Venus has slipped to 11^th and Puetz 12^th in the individual ATP doubles rankings while they are 9^th in the race to qualify for the season ending ATP Finals in Turin in November.

Venus is expecting a tricky first round match.

“They are both great shot makers and can do anything with the ball off both sides of the court. It is going to be up to us to limit the angles that they have and do what we can, shorten the points and apply as much pressure and not let them settle down too much.”

Routliffe who has dropped one spot from her career high of 29 and her Polish partner Alicja Rosolska are also coming off a first-round loss last week at the Canadian Open in Toronto. They have been drawn against Germany’s Laura Siegemund and Czech Marie Bouzkova with the winners to face top seeds Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens in the second round.