Sun down, Routliffe, Venus doubles wins
- Dave Worsley
- Jun 18
- 2 min read
Michael Venus and Erin Routliffe have won their first round matches in the second week of the grass court season, but Lulu Sun suffered a loss in Nottingham.
In Berlin, Routliffe and her Ukrainian partner Lyudmyla Kichenok defeated Chan Hao-Ching from Chinese Taipei and Australia’s Ellen Perez 7-6(6) 6-4.
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Second seed Routliffe and Kichenok were pushed by their opponents, but ihat they were able to come away with the victory in a serve-dominated match, with one break each in the first set and a decisive break for Routliffe and Kichenok in the second.
In the quarterfinals, Routliffe and Kichenok will play against Tereza Mihalikova from Slovakia and Britain’s Olivia Nicholls.
At Queen’s in London, Venus and Mektic defeated Brandon Nakashima and Francis Tiafoe 7-5 6-2.
The match lasted 65 minutes, with Venus and Mektic securing the only break in the penultimate game of the first set.
In the second set, they got an early break against the American singles specialists and then another one later to secure a spot in the quarterfinals.
For their next match, they go up against the top seeds Marcelo Arevalo from El Salvador and Croatia’s Mate Pavic, a contest that will be a big test for both teams, less than two weeks out from Wimbledon.
Meanwhile, Sun lost 6-2 6-2 to Katie Boulter, so will head to Eastbourne for her final tournament before the third grand slam of the year begins on June 30.
Boulter had won the Nottingham WTA 250 tournament for the past two years, so was on a 10-match winning streak at the venue heading into her match against Sun.
The match was tighter than the scoreline may suggest, with Boulter having five break points, compared to four for Sun. But the Brit was able to save all of them against her, while Sun was broken on four occasions.
