Venus comes up just short in quest for 16th ATP Doubles title

Olympic bronze medallist Michael Venus and British partner Neal Skupski have lost a tight doubles final at the ATP 500 tournament in Washington DC, the Citi Open.

They’ve been beaten 7-6 (4) 6-4 by Venus’s former partner South African Raven Klaasen and New Zealand born Ben McLachlan who hails from Queenstown but represents Japan.

It was certainly a match that got away from the second seeds. Venus and Skupski were up a break in the first set but couldn’t close it out. They converted just one of their nine break point chances with Klaasen and McLachlan converting twice from five chances.

McLachlan has now won seven ATP Doubles titles is thrilled with the win.

“Obviously very happy with the win today, we were down a break in the first set and then we faced a lot of break points in the second set and managed to get through.”

Venus will now travel to Toronto for the ATP Masters 1000 tournament there where he is reuniting with his new regular partner Germany’s Tim Puetz. They are the seventh seeds and have been drawn against the Belgian pair of Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen in the first round.