Wimbledon: Michael Venus, Artem Sitak keep Kiwi doubles hopes alive

  • 10/07/2018
Sitak Venus
Artem Sitak and Michael Venus.

Kiwi doubles specialists Michael Venus and Artem Sitak have continued their march through Wimbledon, advancing to the quarter-finals on opposite sides of the men's draw.

Venus and South African Raven Klaasen, seeded 13th, needed 3h 20m and five sets - three of them tiebreakers - to overcome Argentina's Leonardo Mayer and Portugese Joao Sousa.

The Kiwi and his partner won the opening two sets, but were denied a sweep in a third-set tiebreaker and again in the fourth set.

They rebounded to take the fifth set 6-3 and progress to the final 16, where they'll face British favourite Jamie Murray and Brazilian Bruno Soares, seeded fifth, on centre court.

Sitak and Indian Divij Sharana took the opposite route to Venus, falling two sets down, before rallying over the final three to prevail over Israeli Jonathan Erlich and Pole Marcin Matkowski after 3h 50m. It was their second consecutive five-set, three-hour encounter.

"After the second set, we said 'let's keep fighting, keep pushing and looking for those opportunities'," said Sitak. "If we win the third set and it goes the distance again, the other guys might get tired.

"In the middle of the fourth set, I was feeling tired myself and I kept telling myself that if I'm feeling like that, the other guys must be exhausted, so let's keep pushing and we'll get an opportunity.

"That's exactly what happened and we got one break in each set."

Sitak and Sharan now face American seventh seeds Mike Bryan and Jack Sock.

Venus is also still alive in the mixed doubles draw, where he and Russian Katarina Srebotnik, seeded ninth, take on fifth seeds Nikola Mektic of Croatia and Taiwanese Ha-Ching Chan in the third round.

Newshub.