Venus/Klaasen Advance To Semi-finals In London

Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus became the first doubles team to reach the semi-finals at this year’s Nitto ATP Finals, earning their place on Tuesday with a 6-3, 6-4 win against Lukasz Kubot/Marcelo Melo.

The South African-Kiwi pair are 2-0 in Group Jonas Bjorkman after also scoring a straight-sets win on Sunday against Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury. They’re making their second team appearance at the season-ending championships and advanced out of round-robin action for the first time. Klaasen also finished runner-up at this event in 2016 with Rajeev Ram (l. to Kontinen/Peers).

Klaasen/Venus take a 4-3 lead against Kubot/Melo in their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry and have won their past three matches, including victories en route to their two ATP Tour titles this season in Halle and Washington.

Kubot/Melo drop to 1-1 this week, having beaten Ivan Dodig/Filip Polasek on Sunday. Their final round-robin match against Ram/Salisbury will determine the second team to advance out of Group Jonas Bjorkman.

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