Venus last man standing ahead of French Open

Michael Venus is the last Kiwi standing at the final ATP tennis tournaments ahead of Roland Garros.

Venus and Australian partner Matt Reid are through to the quarter finals at the ATP tournament in Parma in Italy after a 7-6 (7) 6-3 win over American’s Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow in 1 hour 19.

They will face Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Austria’s Oliver Marach for a place in the semis after they beat Venus’s former partner Raven Klaasen and Kiwi born Ben McLachlan who represents Japan.

Venus is playing with Reid this week with his regular partner John Peers taking the week off to return to his base in London to get his Covid-19 vaccine.

Marcus Daniell and his Austrian partner Philipp Oswald have been beaten 6-2 6-4 by Italy’s Simone Bolelli and Argentina’s Maximo Gonzalez in their first-round match in Parma.

Meanwhile Artem Sitak and his Argentine partner Federico Gonzalez have lost 6-2 6-1 to Croatians Ivan Sabanov and Matej Sabanov in the quarter finals at the ATP tournament in Belgrade.

Sitak will now head to Paris where he will hope to get into the French Open as an alternate.