McLachlan through with straight sets doubles win

BEN McLachlan has won his way through to the second round at Wimbledon.

The Queenstown doubles specialist combined with JanLennard Struff to beat Nicholas Monroe and JohnPatrick Smith 64, 75, 64 in their first round match on Thursday night.

It was a strong display from the duo, who were not broken once.

After an even opening had the first set at 33, McLachlan/Struff won a crucial break point to go up 43.

They held to go within a game of taking the set and went on to win it.

The second set was more even again, the scores being tied at 55 before McLachlan/Struff won every point to break again.

They then held serve again to go two up.

In the third set they broke early — taking the first game off Monroe/Smith and then holding to go 20 up.

They maintained that advantage through to the end.

The duo now take on Indian pair N Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan in their next match.

Other New Zealanders in action had mixed results.

Thirteenth seeds Michael Venus and his South Africa partner Raven Klassen needed four sets to advance to the second round against former Wimbledon singles champion Lleyton Hewitt and countryman Alex Boult.

Fellow New Zealander Artem Sitak and his Indian partner Divij Sharan are also through to the second round but Marcus Daniell and his Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof were beaten 76, 62, 76 by the Indian pairing of Narainswamy Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan.

In the women’s draw, Erin Routliffe and her Chilean partner Alexa Guarachi failed to make the second round, beaten 62, 26, 62 by a Russian combination.