Kiwis in top form on the red clay

Kiwis Lulu Sun and Michael Venus both marched through to the next round of their respective tournaments in Europe in straight sets overnight.

Sun won the second round of the qualifying draw at Roland-Garros, Paris, while Venus and his partner Yuki Bhambri of India are through to the semi-finals of the Geneva ATP 250 tournament after edging out Swiss hopes Jakub Paul and Dominic Stricker 7-6 7-5.

Sun, with a WTA ranking of 111, beat Aoi Ito of Japan 6-3 6-3 to make the last 32 of the qualifying draw for Roland-Garros. Her next opponent is former world junior No 1 Claire Liu of the United States, who currently has a WTA ranking of 182. Should Sun win this final round of qualifying, she will be one of the 16 qualifiers for the Roland-Garros main draw which starts on Sunday.

Sun was all class in her win against Ito, ranked 232, earning her first break of the match in the third game of the first set. Ito broke back in the sixth game to take the set to 3-all, but Lulu showed composure in breaking back, holding her own serve and then taking out the set 6-3. 

It was Ito's turn to break first in the third game of the second set, but Sun broke straight back and then earned another break in the sixth game for a 4-2 lead. A 20-point game followed which went Ito's way, but Sun again broke back immediately before serving for the match.

Grand slam winner Bianca Andreescu of Canada and former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic were both beaten in the second round of qualifying.

Meanwhile in Geneva, Venus and Bhambri booked their place in the semi-finals in a tight match in which they won the first set in the tie-break 7-4 and then scored a vital break in the eleventh game of the second set before serving for the match, 7-6 7-5. 

Up next for Venus and Bhambri for a place in the finals are Patrik Riki and Adam Pavlasek of Czech Republic. After Geneva the Kiwi and his partner will head to Paris to contest the doubles championship at Roland-Garros, a title Venus won in 2017 with his American partner Ryan Harrison.