New Zealand’s top-ranked doubles tennis player Michael Venus has a high-profile partner for the 2023 ATP Tour season.
The world No 16 is teaming up with Britain’s Jamie Murray, the brother of three-time Grand Slam singles winner Andy.
Jamie Murray, 36, is a former world No 1 in doubles whohas won 27 doubles titles including two grand slams, and linked with Venus for three tournaments on clay earlier this year when the Kiwi’s regular partner Tim Puetz was injured. They achieved a couple of decent results.
“We reached the semifinals in Estoril and also in Madrid (Masters 1000). They were good results, especially just for a scratch [pairing] getting out on the court and trying to figure out along the way what each other likes to do,” Venus said. “So, it felt kind of natural during those tournaments. Hopefully we can build on that platform.”
Venus and Puetz, who met each other at college in the US and are good friends, joined forces after the 2021 French Open and had instant success. They won three titles together, made numerous finals and both took their individual rankings into the top 10. But Venus highlights their inability to consistently challenge for the big titles as a reason for their split.
“It’s always a tricky situation. We definitely had some good results and both thought we could have probably been a little bit more consistent. We both hoped for a few of the deeper runs at some of the bigger tournaments that we didn’t quite have.”
Jamie Murray. Photo / Photosport
Missing out for the second straight year on the top eight pairs who competed at the lucrative season-ending ATP World Tour Finals in Turin last month was another dagger in their partnership. Heading into the European Indoor season Venus and Puetz were in a strong position to qualify, but ended up only going to Turin as alternates and didn’t get on court.
“We really should have made it if we’d had a couple of results,” lamented Venus. “We just didn’t play well enough. So we didn’t deserve to be there.”
The 2017 French Open doubles champion is hopeful his partnership with Murray will flourish in 2023.
“We’ve been on the court together and had a few practices in London before I came back to New Zealand. So, we’ll hopefully get the ball rolling again in the year.”
Venus and Murray will team up together at the Adelaide International in the first week of January before heading across the Tasman for Auckland’s ASB Classic and then returning to Melbourne for the Australian Open.
