Kiwi beats Djokovic, Wawrinka

New Zealand doubles tennis player Marcus Daniell has had a win over 12-time singles grand slam champion Novak Djokovic, and three-time grand slam winner Stan Wawrinka.

Daniell and Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof defeated the pair 6-4 7-6 in the first round of the Queen’s grass court ATP tournament in London.

The Kiwi No 3 and Koolhof only got into the main draw as lucky losers from qualifying and made the most of their opportunity for a memorable win.

Although it went to a tiebreak in the second set, which they won 7-2, Koolhof served for the match at 5-4 in that set, but was broken before he and Daniell comfortably closed out the win.

Daniell put the victory down to doubles smarts that giants of the singles game, Djokovic and Wawrinka, might not have.

‘‘Often the case playing against top singles players, they don’t understand the tactics of doubles, how the positioning yourself on the court can create pressure,’’ Daniell said.

‘‘When you play doubles every week and you focus on it and you are looking at the strategy and tactics, you get a bit of insight that the singles players don’t seem to get.

The win put Daniell and Koolhof into a quarterfinal against doubles specialists, Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s top ranked doubles player Michael Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen suffered a surprise first-round defeat in Halle in Germany losing 4-6, 6-7 to the German pairing of Tim Puetz and Jan-Lennard Struff.