Venus targets world top-10 doubles ranking

When Michael Venus next returns to New Zealand he could have cracked the top 10 in the world of doubles.

The 31-year-old flew out of Auckland this week to spend at least the next eight months travelling around the world with his South African tennis partner Raven Klaasen.

Venus is at 13 in the world doubles’ rankings. His career high is 12, reached last October, and while he’s not specifically targeting a single figure ranking, he recognises it as being a significant achievement in his career.

‘‘That would be really cool,’’ Venus said.

‘‘But I try not to focus on it as that can play on your mind, and you don’t have control over what other guys are doing with their rankings and points.

‘‘We’re more about doing the things we need to be doing and playing well, then we’ll get the results and hopefully we’ll end up there.’’

Venus chose to come back to Auckland after reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open last month.

He did so to avoid the bad weather in Europe, but has a busy schedule with Klaasen coming up, with tournaments in Rotterdam (this week), followed by Marseille, Dubai, Indian Wells and Miami.

It’s been a good start to the year for Venus and Klaasen, getting to the final in Auckland and the quarters in Melbourne, giving them a record of six wins and two losses.

‘‘The first two tournaments we played this year, it felt like we were in sync straight away,’’ Venus said.

‘‘Things that both of us had been individually working on over the off-season were working.

‘‘That was great to see, because sometimes it takes a bit longer.

‘‘If we can keep doing those things, hopefully we can continue to play at a high level. If we do that, we’ll put ourselves in good positions in matches and tournaments.’’

At the ASB Classic, Venus and Klaasen had one of their best performances together in the semifinals, defeating Bob and Mike Bryan 6-4 6-1.

But in the final against Ben McLaughlin, who plays for Japan, and Germany’s JanLennard Struff, they lost 6-3 6-4.

‘‘We would have liked to have played a bit better in the final, but credit to the other guys, they took it out of our hands and forced us to play not as well as we had been.

‘‘Then we had some good wins in Australia, but unfortunately in the quarterfinals we got off to a slow start [against Joao Sousa from Portugal and Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer] didn’t recover in the first set and played a good second set.

‘‘If we were able to sneak through that tiebreak in that set, maybe it would be a different story.

‘‘It showed that you’ve got to be ready from the first ball and keep going.’’

The highlight of 2018 for Venus was playing in the doubles final at Wimbledon and the grand slams will again be a priority, but so to will reaching the ATP Finals in London in November.

‘‘For every team that starts out the year, that’s where they want to play at the end of it,’’ Venus said.

‘‘There are a lot of great teams out there and we’re going to have to put our heads down and do some work.’’