Venus, Harrison through to doubles quarterfinals
Another win at Wimbledon for Michael Venus and Ryan Harrison yesterday not only takes them to the quarterfinals, but another step closer to the ATP World Tour Finals.
Venus and Harrison beat the Grand Slam’s sixth seeds Ivan Dodig from Croatia and Spain’s Marcel Granollers 2-6 6-3 6-4 6-7 6-3 in just over three hours.
That’s their ninth win in a row in a Grand Slam and means Venus will earn at least another NZ$50,000 from this Wimbledon fortnight.
Add that to the $220,000 he picked at the French Open last month, means it’s been a very good month for him financially.
The money could roll in even more if they make it to the World Tour Finals in London in November, which the top eight doubles team take part in.
They went into Wimbledon ranked the sixth best and will go up at least one spot as Dodig and Granollers were fifth.
‘‘It’s all helping,’’ Venus said. ’’There’s a long way to go to qualifying for that, but any matches we can win and points add onto that tally, that’s great.
‘‘But it’s a product of the end of the year if we keep playing well and have success.’’
Their match against Granollers and Dodig was one where they got off to a dreadful start, going down 4-0 in the first set.
However, from that low point they refocused, got into their groove, served big and ended up the deserved winners, in a match played in front of a few hundred people on court No 8.
For a place in the semifinal, Venus and Harrison will need to beat the top seeds, Henri Kontinen from Finland and Australia’s John Peers.
Meanwhile, it wasn’t such a successful day for New Zealand’s Artem Sitak.
He and his American partner Nicholas Monroe lost 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4 to Marcin Matkowski from Poland and Max Mirnyi of Belarus in the third round. ❚ Nadal beaten P21