Close semifinal loss for Kiwis at Australian Open

Erin Routliffe and Michael Venus fell just short of the mixed doubles final at the Australian Open, losing 6-4, 6-4 to Australia’s Olivia Gadecki and John Peers in a closely contested semifinal. 

Despite the loss, the New Zealand duo showcased their growth as a team, building on their strong performance from last year’s Wimbledon.

The two Kiwis put up a tremendous fight, with the result coming down to a couple of points in each set.

But unfortunately for New Zealand tennis fans Routliffe and Venus have repeated what they achieved at last year’s Wimbledon, falling one match short of the final.

However, it was another great run by New Zealand’s top two doubles players to make it this far in the draw and they’ve shown over the fortnight at Melbourne Park that they’re continuing to grow as a team.

This semifinal had a Bledisloe Cup type atmosphere to it, with an all-Australian team taking on a pair of New Zealanders and there was rarely a moment on Margaret Court Arena where the chant ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi’ wasn’t heard. Although those from the eastern side of the Tasman Sea tried to make up for it with yells of ‘Let’s go Kiwis!’

Routliffe and Gadecki were both broken in their first service games. At 4-4, with Venus serving, he fell behind 30-40 and after an exceptionally long rally Routliffe put a volley into the net when attempting to move across the court to hit a winner. Peers served out the next game to love.

There was only one break in the third set, when Routliffe was serving. She and Venus gave it everything to get back into the set, but weren’t able to and Peers finished off the match with an ace. 

“I'm disappointed in the last 10 minutes,” Routliffe said of the match afterwards. 

“I had a few chances on Olivia's serve but to be honest, she served really well, and I was having trouble reading it. 

“They played well in the big moments. I would like a couple of the shots back, but it's over now. 

“We had a good tournament, it's always fun to play with Mike. But yeah, I'm a little upset.”

Routliffe and Venus are both players who wear their emotions on their sleeves during matches. 

Venus is eager to add a mixed doubles grand slam title to his list of achievements and if he and Routliffe can continue playing like they did in Melbourne, there’s every chance they can do it together this year.

“Sometimes maybe we don't look like the happiest out there, but actually we have a really good time playing with each other and it's good energy,” he said. 

“It's quite fun and we've consistently had some really good results, semis here, semis at Wimbledon.  

“When we play, we do well, we're putting ourselves in some good positions. So if we can keep doing that over time, we'd eventually like to go one or two matches further, but hey, the semis is a lot better than the first round.”

Although this year’s Australian Open is over for Venus, Routliffe still has her women’s doubles semifinal with Gaby Dabrowski against Jelena Ostapenko and Hsieh Su-Wei to look forward to.