Tennis: Michael Venus wins ATP doubles title in Marseille

Michael Venus must love visiting France. Photosport

French Open doubles champion Michael Venus has captured his first ATP doubles title since his Grand Slam winning effort in Paris last June.

Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen have beaten fellow Kiwi Marcus Daniell and his British partner Dominic Inglot 6-7 (2) 6-3 10-4 in the final of the 13 Open D Provence ATP tournament in Marseille.

The top seeds have come back from dropping a tight opening set to the fourth seeds to clinch victory in 1 hr 22.

It's the 30-year-old Kiwi's eighth ATP Tour title and his first with the South African who he started playing with at Auckland's ASB Classic last month.

The Kiwi and South African had taken a few weeks to start gelling after losing in the first round of the Australian Open and the Rotterdam ATP tournament. But they have had an impressive week together in Marseille and Venus will rise three places to 14 on the Emirates ATP rankings, two shy of his career high of 12 achieved last year. Venus and Klaasen will share NZ$56,600 for their efforts with Daniell and Inglot to split just under NZ$29,000.

For Daniell it's a fifth ATP finals defeat since winning the last of his three doubles titles in 2016. But the 28-year-old has shown some consistent form since forming his partnership with Inglot before the Basel ATP tournament last October.

It's his first final with Inglot after they reached the quarter finals at the Australian Open last month, Daniell's career best Grand Slam result, and the semi-finals at the strong Basel tournament.

Ironically Daniell will drop one place from his career high of 34 on the Emirates ATP rankings due to other good results from players around him. But he has big opportunities to crack the top 30 for the first time over the next few weeks. Daniell will play his first ATP Masters 1000 tournament at Indian Wells next month. He is teaming up with Argentine Diego Schwartzman who is playing the singles final in Rio de Janeiro today. Schwartzman is ranked 23rd in singles.

Inglot's ranking of 50 is not high enough for him and Daniell to get into Indian Wells as a team so they will split for the Masters 1000 tournaments in the US but will reunite for the clay court season.

But first Daniell and Inglot and Venus and Klaasen will head to Dubai for this week's ATP 500 tournament. Venus and Klaasen are seeded 4th and have been drawn against India's Rohan Bopanna and Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the first round.

Daniell and Inglot have received a tough draw against the second seeds Jean-Julien Roger and Horia Tecau who are the US Open champions.

Romanian, Tecau was Daniell's partner when he won his first ATP tour title in Auckland in 2010.

Meanwhile the third top 100 ranked Kiwi doubles player Artem Sitak has headed to Sao Paulo in Brazil for the ATP 250 tournament there where he and Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof are the fourth seeds.

They have been drawn against Dutchman Sander Arends and German Andre Begeman in the first round.