Matt Brown talks to NZ Tennis player Michael Venus about his surprise change of doubles partners.
Kiwi tennis player Michael Venus has decided to end his doubles partnership with Australian John Peers after the upcoming French Open.
Venus made the surprise announcement just days before starting his Roland Garros campaign with Peers and will instead team up with Germany's Tim Puetz from the start of thegrass court season.
A desire to achieve better results in Grand Slams was the key factor in Venus' decision.
"It's never an easy decision to figure out, especially when we have had some good results like John and I have had," Venus told the Herald. "But at the end of the day we play very similar, we are both very aggressive which can be effective with the sudden death deuces at ATP tournaments.
"But with the slams you need to return well together in order to break serve and we haven't quite had the success in the slams that we were hoping for. So it was a gut feeling that we needed someone who complimented our games better so we can stay true to ourselves."
Venus and Peers are 13th in the race to qualify for the ATP Finals in Turin with Venus 15th and Peers 25th in the individual doubles rankings. The ending of their partnership will make it extremely difficult for the Kiwi to qualify for the year-end finals featuring the top eight teams for the fifth straight year.
Michael Venus and John Peers. Photo / Photosport
Venus and Peers enjoyed good success together since joining forces at the 2020 ASB Classic. They won three tournaments together last year at the ATP500 events in Dubai and Hamburg and the ATP250 tournament in Antwerp, compiling a 22-13 win-loss record and qualifying for the elite eight-team field for the Tour Finals in London.
This year they have only played four tournaments due to Venus returning home after the Australian Open for the birth of his second child. But they have a 10-4 record having reached the last 16 at the Australian Open, the semis at the Rome Masters 1000 tournament and most recently winning the title in Geneva last week.
But despite their success, Venus, who made the decision to split and told Peers at the recent Rome Masters, believes it's the right time.
"At the end of the day I am not getting any younger and I want to put myself in a position to achieve as much as my goals as I can while I am playing. Tim and I were in college together at the same time in the US. He's been moving up the doubles rankings quite quickly and I am excited to team up with him starting with the grass."
Puetz is ranked 38th but the German has enjoyed an impressive run of form on clay, winning doubles titles in Lyon and Estoril in the past month.
"He returns really well and is very good off the back of the court, has a good serve and is very athletic. He does everything really well. That will allow me to be quite free and loose out there and try some things," Venus said.
But first it's onto Paris where Venus and Peers will be seeded in their quest to go out on a high. The 33-year-old Kiwi won the Roland Garros doubles title in 2017 with Ryan Harrison and always relished a return to the Parisian clay.
"We both want to do our best and hopefully we can finish on a high at Roland Garros which would be a great way to finish things."
