Venus changing doubles partner after Paris
Kiwi tennis player Michael Venus is ending his doubles partnership with Australian John Peers after the French Open next week.
Venus made the surprise announcement just days before starting his Roland Garros campaign with Peers and will team with Germany’s Tim Puetz from the start of the grass court season.
A desire to achieve better results in Grand Slams was the key factor in his decision.
“It’s never an easy decision to figure out, especially when we’ve had some good results,” Venus told the Weekend Herald.
“But we play very similar, we are both very aggressive, which can be effective with the sudden death deuces at ATP tournaments.
“But with the slams, you need to return well together in order to break serve, and we haven’t quite had the success in the slams we were hoping for. It was a gut feeling we needed someone who complimented our games better; stay true to ourselves.”
Venus and Peers are 13th in the race to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin, with Venus 15th and Peers 25th in the individual doubles rankings. The ending of their partnership will make it extremely difficult for the Kiwi to qualify for the year-end finals featuring the top eight teams for the fifth straight year.
Venus and Peers enjoyed good success together since joining forces at the 2020 ASB Classic. They won three tournaments together last year at the ATP500 events in Dubai and Hamburg and the 250 tournament in Antwerp, compiling a 22-13 win-loss record and qualifying for the elite eight team field for the Tour Finals in London.
Despite their success, Venus, who made the decision to split and told Peers at the recent
Rome Masters, believes it’s the right time. “I’m not getting any younger and I want to put myself in a position to achieve as many of my goals as I can while I’m playing. Tim and I were in college together at the same time in the US. He’s been moving up the doubles rankings quite quickly and I’m excited to team with him, starting with the grass.”
Puetz is ranked 38th but the German has enjoyed an impressive run of form on clay, winning doubles titles in Lyon and Estoril this month. “He returns really well and is very good off the back of the court, has a good serve and is very athletic. He does everything well, allowing me to be quite free and loose out there,” Venus said.