Michael Venus back at the place which holds special memories

At Wimbledon, by Centre Court, there is a wall of champions, listing everyone who’s won a trophy at the tournament.

Michael Venus says there isn’t one at Roland Garros or not one that he’s seen.

Back in 2017, Venus won the men’s doubles title in Paris with Ryan Harrison and it remains the biggest moment in the 36-year-old’s career.

It’s something he obviously still remembers fondly, but as far as seeing his name on any honours board at Roland Garros, he doesn’t think there’s one for him to look at.

“I don’t think so, I’m not sure,” Venus said. 

“Obviously, at Wimbledon, it’s there and you can see it. I haven’t seen anything here, but to be honest, I haven’t gone searching for it. 

“But I know within myself the feelings and emotions I had and the memories from that tournament.

“You walk around a place where you’ve done well, even if it was a while ago and it brings confidence to you, which is nice.

“But in saying that, I’m playing with a different partner, it’s a different year and you’re playing different people.

“It’s nice to have those memories, but you can’t think that just because I’ve done well here, that it’s going to magically happen again.”

Venus and his usual partner, Jamie Murray, are the No 13 seeds at Roland Garros and have been drawn against the Spanish duo of Pedro Martinez and Jaume Munar.

Meanwhile, Marcus Daniell, in his last ever French Open, has teamed up with Mackenzie McDonald and they’ll take on Francis Tiafoe and Dustin Brown, while the No 9 seeds in the women’s draw, Erin Routliffe and Leylah Fernandez are up against Hanyu Guo and Xinyu Jiang in the opening round.

Venus has come to Paris with his family, as he often does, and he feels that his preparation has gone well for the second grand slam of the year, even if the results aside from reaching the semifinals at Madrid, don’t reflect that.

“It’s funny, you always want to be positive and think about the good things and it has felt good,” he said.

“The things we’re doing on court we’re really pleased with and feeling good about.

“We haven’t quite had a big result. We made the semis of Madrid and lost the 10-point tiebreaker there. We had some chances and if we’d won that and the next one, you’d be thinking things are going even better.

“In all the matches we’ve been playing, it’s felt good and we’ve been doing the right things, but we’ve lost some tight ones lately.”

As a doubles specialist, Venus relishes the different rules at grand slams, where there is no sudden death deuce and a full third set is played, rather than a super tiebreaker.

“The big ones for the grand slams is not having the sudden death deuces,” he said. 

“Those throughout the year, it can feel like you play one point and make a bad mistake, or the other guys get lucky with one shot and then all of a sudden there’s a huge amount of pressure. 

“Whereas here, for teams to break serve, you have to return well together, in the other weeks one player can break serve by themselves.

“So you have to work more as a team and that’s maybe the biggest change. Hopefully, with us playing together for a while, if we get into those situations, which we will, we can keep working together and we know how to help each other.”

Roland Garros brings to an end the clay court part of the tennis calendar. Even though it’s the only surface Venus has won a grand slam on, it’s one he had to adapt to, but he says for doubles there isn’t a big change of tactics to play on it.

“It’s not a huge amount, I feel like quite a lot of players on hardcourt serve and stay back anyway,” he said.

“So it’s not like you go from playing everyone who serves and volleys, to all of a sudden people are staying back and you’re having these long rallies you’re not really used to.

“I stay back a bit more on the clay, but there are still times on a hard court where I’ll serve and stay back.

“It’s mainly the movement with the sliding, but with the doubles you’re covering half the court, so it’s not as big a thing as it is in singles.

“Especially when it gets hot, the clay plays quite fast and bouncy and it’s probably faster than a lot of hard court tournaments.”