Wimbledon over in 2022 for Michael Venus

Michael Venus’s involvement at this year’s Wimbledon has come to an end, following his and Alicja Rosolska’s loss in the mixed doubles to Venus Williams and Jamie Murray. 

Venus and Rosolska went down 6-3 6-7 6-3 in two hours 18 minutes to the five-time Wimbledon singles champion and brother of Andy in a match that captivated the large crowd.

The match wasn’t assigned to any court beforehand as Wimbledon officials wanted to ensure it was played on a big court without disrupting the singles schedule and as soon as Carlos Alcaraz had wrapped up his one-sided match against Oscar Otte from Germany, winning 6-3 6-1 6-2, it was announce it would be played on No 1 court, with around 10,000 spectators watching.

Although the crowd was behind Williams and Murray, they applauded the good shots from Venus and Rosolska and while it didn’t have the feel of an exhibition match, it was a contest played in good spirits, although a line judge was booed for calling out a foot fault by Murray.

The match started out evenly, before Rosolska was broken in the third service game, while Williams gradually felt more comfortable in her first competitive match in 11 months. 

Two break points were saved in Williams’s second service game, before the British/ American team clinched the first set in 39 minutes.

Both women had their serves broken early in the second set, but after that there were holds throughout so the set went into a tiebreak.

In it, Murray ripped a return of a Rosolska serve to get the mini break, but Williams lost the next two points on her serve and not long after Venus and Rosolska had the second set.

There was a 15-minute delay before the second set could begin, with the roof needing to be closed because of the dimming light. 

Again, Rosolska dropped her serve early in a set and this time Williams was able to keep her serve big, despite Venus being more aggressive with his returns.

Although they lost, Venus and Rosolska walked off to a standing ovation from the crowd.

"When you get to play on Centre Court or Court No 1 here it’s pretty special," Venus said of the experience.

"So an unbelievable atmosphere out there, with the amount of people that stayed after the singles matches.

"We got off to a bit of a slow start and had some break points to get back on serve, but didn’t get them.

"We learnt a few things from the first set and changed it up a bit for the second and they seemed to work well.

"We played a good tiebreaker, but unfortunately they closed roof and it was quick, but potentially we maybe lost some of that momentum we had just snagged.

"Credit to them, we played a really good third set and we couldn’t quite get back that last game. At 4-2 and 0-30 we had a couple of looks, but couldn’t get one of those points, if were had, maybe it would have been a different story, but that’s how it is."

Venus will take a couple of weeks off before his next tournament in Hamburg, Germany, then he’ll head to the States in preparation for the US Open.