Routliffe into grasscourt semis, Venus quarters
- Dave Worsley
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Two out of three for New Zealanders playing doubles in the build up to Wimbledon with Erin Routliffe and Lyudmyla Kichenok are through to the semifinals of the London WTA 500 tournament,
In Europe Michael Venus and Nikola Mektic are into the quarterfinals at ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, but Lulu Sun and American Ann Li were beaten 6-4 7-6(7) by Poland;s Katarzyna and Nina Stojanovic (Serbia) in the first round.
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Routliffe and Ukraine’s Kichenok won their quarterfinal over the British duo of Emma Raducanu and Katie Boulter 6-2 7-5 and an enthusiastic crowd at the Queens Club.
They won both of the deciding points in this match, while Raducanu, who rarely plays doubles, and Boulter converted only one of the eight break points they had.
This was the second all-British team that Routliffe and Kichenok have defeated at Queen’s as in the first round they beat Jodie Burrage and Sonay Kartal 7-6(8) 7-6(1).
In their semifinal, they will play the winner of the match between Asia Muhammad and Demi Schuurs against Yulia Putintseva and Elena Rybakina.
At ’s-Hertogenbosch Venus and Mektic beat Theo Arribage from France and Brazil’s Marcelo Demoliner 6-4 1-6 10-7.
As the scoreline suggests, Venus and Mektic lost their way slightly in the second set, but their experience as a team helped them to come through in the super tiebreak.
In the quarterfinals Venus and Mektic will go up against Belgian Zizou Bergs and Jesper De Jong (Netherlands).
