Tennis: Michael Venus and Klaasen get good draw for US Open

South Africa's Raven Klaasen, left, and New Zealand's Michael Venus touch hands during their men's doubles final match against Mike Bryan and Jack Sock. Photo / AP.

New Zealand's top ranked doubles player Michael Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen have been seeded eighth and have received a good draw at the US Open starting tonight in New York.

The Wimbledon doubles finalists will face singles players Slovakian Lukas Lacko and Australian John Millman first up.

They are seeded to face 12th seeds ex Kiwi Ben McLachlan and Germany's Jan Lennard Struff in the third round.

Venus and Klaasen are 17th and 19th individually in the ATP doubles rankings and are sixth in the race to qualify for the ATP World Tour finals in London in November. A strong showing in New York should book their place in the eight strong field for London.

The other Kiwis in the draw, Artem Sitak and Marcus Daniell have received tougher draws.

Sitak and his Indian partner Divij Sharan will face the American wildcard pair of Martin Redlicki and Evan Zhu and if they win would could meet seventh seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo. Sitak and Sharan have not been playing together over the past few weeks with Sharan representing India at the Asian Games in Jakarta.

Marcus Daniell and his Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof have been pitted against the experienced Belarussian Max Mirnyi and Austrian Philip Oswald.

If they can get past that tough team they could potentially face in form fourth seeds Bruno Soares and Jamie Murray in the second round.

The first round of the doubles will be split over Thursday and Friday New Zealand time.