Sun, Venus doubles wins French Open
- Dave Worsley
- May 28
- 2 min read
Lulu Sun and Michael Venus have both had first round wins intheir their respective doubles matches at the French Open.
Sun and Chinese partner Yuan Yue beat Russia’s Anna Blinkova and Mayar Sherif (Egypt) Egypt 6-2 5-7 6-3, while Venus and Croat Nikola Mektic knocked out Gregorie Jacq from France and Australia’s Matthew Romios 6-4 1-6 6-4.
LATEST HEADLINES:
On Court 2, Sun and Yuan raced out to a 3-0 lead in the opening set of their match and had two break points to go up 4-1. However their opponents fought back to make the score 4-4 before Sun hitting a winning drop shot for the set.
Sun survived a break point against her in the opening game of the second set, but Yuan wasn’t so successful two games later.
That was followed by five breaks of serve in a row, before Sun finally got a hold, with Blinkova putting a forehand into the net on game point.
There were breaks for both teams in the early stages of the deciding set, but Sun and Yuan got the crucial one in the eighth game to go up 5-3.
On the first match point Yuan put a backhand down the line into the net, but she earned themselves a second match point and this time Yuan hit a perfectly placed forehand into the corner.
On Court 8 Venus and Mektic had a break in the sixth game of the opening set and then kept hold of that lead.
But the No 7 seeds couldn’t get going in the second set and found themselves down 5-0 before they got on the board.
At 4-5 in the deciding set, Venus and Mektic stepped up their returns and went after Jacq’s serve to go up 0-40.
The next two points went the way of Jacq the Frenchman, but on the third match point Mektic hit a blistering return to secure a spot for himself and Venus in the second round.
