Venus gains wildcard for Classic singles
DAVID LONG
Roland Garros doubles champion Michael Venus has been given a singles main draw wildcard for next month’s ASB Classic.
Venus has had the best year of his career. As well as winning the second slam of the year, he also won a clay court tournament in Estoril with Ryan Harrison and reached the seasonending ATP finals last month, where he and Harrison reached the semifinals.
Classic tournament director Karl Budge said it was an easy decision to give one of the three main draw wildcards to Venus.
‘‘I think Mike is New Zealand’s best singles player,’’ Budge said.
‘‘He has done an incredible job each time he has played main draw for us in recent years and has earnt the right to have another crack.
‘‘That, coupled with the unbelievable year he has had, made it a pretty simple decision for us.’’
Given Venus is a doubles specialist, it could be seen as a controversial decision to give him the singles wildcard, given he only played five singles matches in 2017, winning just one of them, against Hong Seong-chan from South Korea in the Davis Cup.
New Zealand’s No 1 singles player Rubin Statham, who is ranked 290 in the world, could miss out on a wildcard for the main draw and qualifying, as he chose not to play in the New Zealand championships last week.
Statham decided to play Futures tournaments in Thailand instead, hoping to pick up enough ranking points to make it into qualifying for the Australian Open, but looks likely to come up just short for that.
This will be Venus’ ninth appearance at the Classic, with his best result being in 2015 when he defeated Alejandro Gonzalez, then ranked 109 in the world, while Venus was at 426.
At this year’s Classic he lost a thrilling match 3-6 6-4 6-3 to world No 28 Feliciano Lopez.
‘‘I’m really excited,’’ Venus said.
‘‘I had the opportunity a number of times now and I think I’ve played well each time I’ve gone out there and put myself in a position to win one match and I’ve put myself in a position where I could have won a couple more.
‘‘I love playing on the court, the atmosphere is great and it’s somewhere where I feel comfortable and that brings out my best tennis.
‘‘So I’m really looking for to the challenge and opportunity.’’