The New Zealand tennis player Michael Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen are through to the second round of the doubles at the French Open.
Michael Venus Photo: Photosport
Defending champion Venus and Klaasen beat the French wildcard pair of Corentin Denolly and Alexandre Muller in straight sets, completing the win just before play was suspended around the grounds due to rain.
The 10th seeded Kiwi and South African combination were never troubled by the young French pair and after breaking serve in the opening game they never looked back.
"First match of a tournament there are nerves from everyone so first game to break settled us both down and allowed us to relax and play our game."
Venus did save two break points on serve in the 6th game of the first set from 15-40, serving two second serve aces. But he and Klaasen broke again in the 9th game to take the set 6-3 in 40 minutes.
Games went with serve until the 6th game of the second set when Venus and Klaasen broke again for 4-2. Venus served out the match to start the defence of his title in the best possible way.
" We took care of the net really well and made the other guys play some tough shots out there so we took care of that but the next team will be tough and have confidence from their first round win so we will just start again". Venus said.
Venus and Klaasen will next face another French pair, the experienced Jonathan Eysseric and Hugo Nys for a place in the third round tomorrow.
Fellow Kiwi Artem Sitak plays his first round match later this morning in the last match on court 12 as he and Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof face Germany's Andre Begemann and Croatian Antonio Sancic.
