Newly-hitched Venus happy to play singles field for week

opportunity.’’

When the ATP changed the rules and reduced singles qualifying draws from 32 to 16 players, it ended any chance of Venus playing the odd singles match on tour, when there weren’t enough players entered for qualifying.

Unless Venus has an incredible run this week and picks up a heap of points, it’s likely that this is going to be a one off for him.

‘‘I would love to play more. But with the doubles, I have no [singles] ranking anymore and I can’t get into the singles.

‘‘So we’ll play this week and then I’ll be over to Melbourne to get ready for the Australian Open doubles.’’

There’s no doubting Venus’ abilities when playing doubles, but on the smaller singles court it will be tougher for him.

His big serve should get him cheap points, but there are parts of the singles game that he’s not so used to these days.

‘‘It definitely provides some new challenges, I just have to adapt to it,’’ he said.

‘‘How I feel I’ve been hitting the ball this week, that side of things feels really good, so now I’ve got to get back into the habit of covering both sides of the court.

‘‘I’ve spoken to my coach at length about what we think will work and what’s the best strategy to go forward.

‘‘So I’m just trying to practice on those things and hopefully I can go out there and play well.’’

Venus, who wouldn’t answer questions about his wedding last week, first played at the Classic in 2010, that year losing to Andre Sa in three sets.

The following year he had another epic match, pushing Tommy Robredo before losing 6-7 6-3 6-0.

But it was this match which showed the potential Venus had as a professional player.

‘‘I remember being extremely nervous,’’ Venus said of that occasion. ‘‘It was the biggest court I’d played on at the time.

‘‘I won the first set and then he figured out how to play me quite well after that and I faded towards the third set.

‘‘But it was a great experience and I thought for the first time playing in that environment and on that court it was a good stepping stone.’’

All three New Zealanders in qualifying lost yesterday. Rhett Purcell put up a good fight, but lost 7-5 4-6 6-1 to Leonardo Mayer, Ajeet Rai went down 6-4 6-2 to Thiago Monteiro and Kiranpai Pannu lost to Vasek Poslisil 6-2 6-4.