Top Kiwi doubles player Michael Venus and his South African doubles partner Raven Klaasen have been beaten in the semi-finals at the ATP 500 tournament in Washington DC, the Citi Open.
They've lost to 4th seeds Britain's Jamie Murray and Brazil's Bruno Soares 75 7-6 (2) in 1 hour 35.
Venus and Klaasen will lament failing to convert any of three break point opportunities in the first set. Games went with serve until the 12th game when Soares and Murray were able to break to clinch the set. Both teams served well in the second set with the 4th seeds creating the only break point chance which Venus and Klaasen saved. It went to a tie breaker which Murray and Soares won comfortably to win through to the final.
Despite the loss Venus and Klaasen have cemented 6th spot in the race to London. The top eight doubles teams at the end of the season secure their place in the elite ATP World Tour Finals in London where Venus reached the semi-finals with Ryan Harrison last year.
Venus and Klaasen now head to Toronto for the ATP Masters 1000 tournament. The draw is out and they have been pitted against a couple of singles players in American Steve Johnson and Korean Hyeon Chung in the first round.
Kiwi Artem Sitak has missed out on making the main draw in Toronto having teamed up with rising next gen star Stefanos Tsitsipas. They are the fourth alternate and will get in if four teams pull out which would seem unlikely. However they are likely to get into the following week's Masters 1000 tournament in Cincinnati.
Meanwhile 21 year old Kiwi Paige Hourigan has lost her semi-final at the ITF $25,000 US tournament in Fort Worth Texas.
Hourigan who knocked out the top seed en route to the semis from qualifying, has been beaten 6-3 6-3 by American third seed Robin Anderson.
The Kiwi who started the tournament ranked 723 is expected to climb more than 100 places to just outside the top 600 next week.
There has been some success for Kiwi men looking to qualify for tournaments in Asia and Europe. Rubin Statham has won his first round qualifying match at the US $150,000 tournament in Jinan in China. Statham has snapped a four match losing streak by beating China's Zekai Li 64 61.
Ajeet Rai has won his first round qualifying match 6-0 6-0 over Italy's Vittorio Gianserra at an ITF 25,000 US tournament in Jakarta in Indonesia.
Macsen Sisam is through to the second round of qualifying at the ITF US $15,000 tournament in Novi Sad in Serbia, defeating local player Veljko Blagojevic 62 64.
