Michael Venus is a Grand Slam Champion (Just Let That Sink In For A Sec)
Hands up if you gave a damn about the professional tennis career of New Zealand’s Michael Venus a week ago? Ha well guts to you because the bugger just won the French Open Mens' Doubles title. Had to share it with an American but that doesn’t matter – Venus is the first kiwi to win a Grand Slam title since 1979. Bloody legend.
Michael Venus has been around for a while. The 29 year old Aucklander went pro back in 2006 and has been a regular for the NZ Davis Cup team since 2010 – having represented the USA, where he still lives, during his college days there. Never did much as a singles player where his ranking peaked at a frosty 274 in 2011 but his doubles game has always been pretty hot. Although nothing that portended this latest success.
Like, for a couple years he had a good thing going with doubles partner Mate Pavic. That particular NZ/Croatia pairing led to five World Tour 250 titles (and another six lost finals), including the 2016 ASB Classic in Auckland, yeah boys. But despite a pretty huge 2016 campaign the pair split up in October of that year with Pavic teaming up with Austria’s Alexander Peya instead. The reason for that being that Peya’s better ranking would allow the pair entry into better ranked tournaments, this coming about a month after Pavic won the US Open Mixed Doubles with Laura Siegemund (Germany).
That’s the thing with those ATP 250 comps, they’re not the sexiest ones out there. The tennis World Tour is tiered with more ranking points on offer in each ascending tier. The 250s are better than the Challenger Tour which is better than the Futures stuff but they ain’t as lucrative as the 500 series which in turn don’t really compare to the nine Masters 1000 tournaments. To put that into context, Venus & Pavic’s 5-6 record in tour finals all came in 250 series events. Before this French Open Venus had only ever made the final of one better event, the 500 series Swiss Indoors with Robert Lindstdt (Sweden) – they lost 6-3 6-4 to Jack Sock & Marcel Granollers.
Ryan Harrison is a Louisiana native who has been mates with Venus since their college days (Venus went to Louisiana State University). Harrison’s dad is Venus’ coach. In fact Venus was a groomsman at Harrison’s wedding, even. Part of what makes this French Open triumph so insane is that they only got together as doubles partners for the clay court season recently but that’s a slight misreading of things because their partnership actually goes back as far as 2008. But, yeah, the Baton Rouge Challenger hardly compares to a Grand Slam event.
Ryan Harrison: “You always dream of winning a Grand Slam every time you're playing as a kid but I know that for Michael and I it's even more special that we're able to do it alongside each other because he's like a brother. He's been a part of my family. We have been a home away from home for him, considering New Zealand is pretty far away from most tennis training academies.
“He was like a brother growing up. He taught me how to drive, taught me how to do a lot of things - one thing he didn't teach me how to do was talk to girls - but he was someone who’s been there for a lot of memorable moments of my life, including my wedding. To have him with me and for the most special moment of my career is surreal.”
Venus & Harrison won the Estoril Open in May, beating David Marrero & Tommy Robredo 7-5 6-2 in the final. It was Venus’ second ever clay court tournament win, you can probably guess the clay court scene in New Zealand isn’t the best. Decent preparation that may be but Venus, a doubles specialist, had never gone past the first round at the French in three past attempts. He’d never gone past the third round in any other Grand Slam event either. In three Masters 1000 events this year he’d been beaten in the first round every time.
So let’s just say that a French Open championship wasn’t on the cards here- he and Harry weren’t even seeded. Yet while fellow NZer Artem Sitak and his mate Nicholas Monroe (USA) were knocked out in three sets, while fellow NZer Marcus Daniell and his mate Marcelo Demoliner (Brazil) were beaten in three sets, Venus & Harrison came back from dropping their first set to advance past Frances Tiafoe (USA) & Diego Schwartzman (Argentina). Then they won again, knocking out Lukasz Kubot (Poland) & Marcelo Melo (Brazil) in three sets. Both Venus and Harrison are known for having ruthless serves, always handy in the doubles arena, but they also showed some impressive clutch in winning third sets in every damn round.
They were on the brink of elimination in their third round clash with Indian duo Purav Raja & Divij Sharan. Having dropped the first set 6-4 they were taken to a tiebreaker in the second but an impressively error-free run by the pair kept them in it with a 7-6 (5) set win there and a couple broken service games got them through to the victory in the third, 6-2. Which, by the way, would make Michael Venus the first New Zealander to compete in a Grand Slam quarter-final since Brett Steven made the Wimbledon quarters with Pat Galbraith (USA) in 1998.
Having already dropped the fourth seeded team of Kubot/Melo, the next challenge was the seventh seeded duo of Ivan Dodig (Croatia) & Marcel Granollers (Spain). It took 91 minutes to get through it, winning the first set 6-2 but going down 6-3 in the second. However that same resilience was on show here again with Venus & Harrison saving seven of the eight break points they faced. That’s the rocket serving in evidence again, they took the third set 6-3 to advance to the semis.
Again, Juan Sebastian Cabal & Robert Farah (both Colombia) would have been favoured to beat MV/RH, the sixteenth seeds and the last remaining seeded pair in the tournament after Jamie Murray (UK) & Bruno Soares (Brazil) were knocked out in the quarters by eventual finalists Santiago Gonzalez (Mexico) & Donald Young (USA). The first set went as planned, the Colombians taking it 6-4 with a cheeky break and some mostly dominant serving (0 break points against them and a 95% winning mark on first serves that first set). MV/RH bounced back in the second though. Cabal and Farah’s serving accuracy dropped off and Venus & Harry were able to pounce on their second serves, avoiding too many unforced errors as was the case all tournament and making the most of their rare opportunities to strike with a single broken service game early in the set taking us into a decisive third.
By now both pairs were tiring and the first-serve numbers reflected that. However neither could quite capitalise on that until the ninth game of the set, where Mike & Ryan were able to break Cabal’s serve for a 5-4 lead. It was now up to Michael Venus to serve it out and despite having to fend off a break point there he did exactly that. Into the final we went.
Santiago Gonzalez & Donald Young were also competing in their first Grand Slam doubles final, just as Michael Venus and Ryan Harrison were. But Mike Venus trumps the lot of them because he had never even won a set at Roland Garros before. Probably woulda been hard to imagine winning the opening set at the French Open Mens' Doubles final then but guess what? It happened. Took a tiebreaker after both pairs missed multiple chances to break serve but the kiwi and yank were slightly better at winning off their second serves with both lots probably a little nervous at the occasion.
Gonzalez & Young tightened that up in the second but weren’t able to win the only break point of the set (off Venus’ serve), the lack of errors from V&H ensuring we were off to another tiebreaker. With the championship on the line, though, they dropped the ‘breaker from a 3-1 lead, losing five consecutive points, and to the third we went. Had they’d gone on to lose then that tiebreaker could have become one of those things you regret for a lifetime, that was the trophy right there, four points away, and they collapsed.
Instead they used their third set prowess to steady the ol’ ship, as they say. A double fault on Gonzalez’s serve put Venus & Harrison up four games to two. All they needed to do now was hold serve twice and bingo, show us the cash. An extended arm-wrestle of a game followed and Venus, eventually, had his serve broken. So much for that then. However Young repeated dose with a double fault of his own trying to deny a break point and Harrison served it out for the championship.
Five winners and one unforced error to three winners and ten unforced errors. Five aces and one double fault to three aces and ten double faults. Seems surreal to say it but the kiwi dude deserved to win this. Complementing the power serve of Ryan Harrison (whose firstie peaked at 220 k/h here), Venus and his mate were marginally better in almost every aspect and when that’s the case in a Grand Slam final, well, this is what you get to do…
Remember when Mate Pavic broke up the band to link up with a higher ranked bro? No hard feelings there, it’s just the nature of the sport. But the funny thing is now with this triumph, so completely unprecedented and unlikely in Michael Venus’ career, he’s about to fly up the doubles rankings. Potentially even as high as the top 15-20, compared to his current standing of 39 – we’ll find out very soon. Suddenly it’s Venus who’ll get his pick of partners, what with his new qualified entry into Masters 1000 events and everything.
He probably will need a new partner too, as Harrison is more of a singles player. He’s ranked 42nd in the world and looking to rise. Twice he’s beaten top ten ranked opponents (Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic, the latter he knocked out on the way to the third round at last year’s US Open, his best singles Grand Slam result). He was easily beaten in four sets by Aljaz Bedene (UK) in the first round at this French Open but rates himself going into the grassy stuff. The pairing with Venus was really just a convenient and temporary thing.
Ryan Harrison: "Two and a half, three months ago, [Venus] decided that he was going to be looking for a partner for the clay season, and I didn't have anybody. We both were very excited. It just kind of all came into play.”
Although that could change now with this crazy success. It had been expected that Michael Venus would hook up with Brazil’s Andre Sa (who lost with Israeli Jonathan Erlich to Ganzalez & Young in the third round at Roland Garros). Now that might not be such a sure thing given how much Venus’ stocks have just risen and whatever Harrison’s priorities may now be.
But let’s be honest here, Michael Venus probably won’t ever win another Grand Slam title. He wasn’t even supposed to win this one. A glorious future is one thing but let’s just take a moment to say “Chur, bro” to a kiwi lad who deserves it. This is an incredible achievement and it came from absolutely nowhere. Don’t let that diminish it for you.
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