Sitak spells end of line for Venus
Artem Sitak and his Indian partner, Divij Sharan, knocked out the top seeds in the doubles at the ASB Classic, beating Michael Venus and John Peers 7-6 7-6.
Sitak had played against Venus for three of the last four years at the Classic and twice Venus beat him, so it was good for Sitak to even the tally.
This was Venus’ first match with Peers as his new permanent doubles partner and even though they know each other well and practice together regularly in London, they still need to get used to playing on the same side of the court.
At times it looked like they still need to gel, while Sitak and Sharan looked solid.
Sitak and Sharan trailed 4-1 in the first set but fought back to send it into a tiebreak.
In the tiebreak, Venus and Peers were up 3-1, but again the other team fought back and won 7-4.
In the seventh game of the next set, Sharan dropped his serve, but Venus suffered the same fate in the next game.
However, Sharan was broken again later in the set, putting Venus and Peers up 6-5.
But once more Venus was broken as Sharan stepped up with some huge returns.
In the tiebreak, Sitak and Sharan got an early minibreak and later went on to lead 6-3.
On the first match point, Sitak made a great return that hit the line and moved him into the quarterfinals of the tournament.
Even though there was a good crowd on Centre Court, the atmosphere was fairly subdued and Sitak thought this was because the spectators weren’t sure who to support.
‘‘They were loud because we had some great points, but that’s about it,’’ Sitak said.
‘‘Which is understandable, because you don’t really know who to cheer for.
‘‘I guess you’re just cheering for good tennis, which I think we showed out there. I think all four of us played really well.’’
Meanwhile, Ajeet Rai and Rhett Purcell both lost their respective doubles matches.