Tennis: New Zealand’s Michael Venus reaches Queen’s Club men’s doubles final

New Zealand tennis player Michael Venus and Britain’s Neal Skupski have downed the reigning champions to reach the men’s doubles final at the Queen’s Club.

Skupski, the Wimbledon men’s doubles champion, and Venus, the world No 26, beat Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek 7-6(6), 6-4 in their semifinal.

The doubles specialists, Venus, 36, and Skupski, 34, will take on singles stars American Taylor Fritz and Russian Karen Khachanov in the final in London overnight.

The partnership between Skupski and Venus might be in its infancy at the professional level, but the duo have years of experience playing together at the same college in the United States – Louisiana State University – more than a decade ago.

This week has shown promising results for the new Kiwi-British combination after they knocked out the second-seeded pairing Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in the quarterfinals.

Venus had been competing alongside Jamie Murray for the past seasons before lining up with Skupski, the world No16, at the start of the grasscourt season.

Skupski will represent Britain in doubles at the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris, and paired up with Wesley Koolhof to lift the Wimbledon men’s doubles title last year.

This marks Skupski’s third final of the season, and he will be looking to make it third time lucky after falling short in Acupulco and Delray Beach.

The doubles final will take place straight after the men’s final at Queen’s between fifth seed Tommy Paul and Lorenzo Musetti.

– RNZ