Michael Venus, Jamie Murray lose close match to French duo at Roland Garros

Michael Venus and Jamie Murray have been edged out in a close match against Lucas Pouille and Gregoire Barrere in the second round at Roland Garros.

Venus and Murray, who were the No 13 seeds in Paris, lost 6-4 7-6(6) to the French duo, in a match that was played in front of a large and partisan crowd on Court Simonne-Mathieu on Sunday.

With Marcus Daniell watching from the stands, Venus and Murray had three set points in the second set but weren’t able to convert them and that proved costly as the French team, spurred on by the crowd singing The Marseillaise, clinched victory from their first match point.

Venus made it to the third round at Roland Garros last year, so has dropped 90 points by this second-round defeat and he and Daniell will have to wait to see if their combined ranking is good enough to get them to July’s Olympic Games.

It wasn’t the start to this match that Venus and Murray would have hoped for, with the Kiwi broken in the opening game and Murray suffering the same fate two games later. 

Down 4-0, Venus held serve to get the NZ/British team on the board and after Murray was also able to hold serve, he put away a volley at break point in the next game to make the score 5-3 in the French team’s favour.

Pouille served at 5-4 and fell behind 0-40, but he then put in a string of big serves to win five points in a row and take the opening set.

It was a good fight back in the set from Venus and Murray, but the hole they got themselves in, was just too big to get out of.

The second set started with a confident hold by Venus and it stayed tight, with no break points in it before the tiebreak.

Barrere went wide with a backhand down the line in the second point of it to give his opponents a mini-break, which quietened the crowd briefly.

Venus and Murray took that lead into the first change of ends and they had three set points when up 6-3. Barrere saved the first two on his serve, then ripped a winning return on Murray’s serve on the next point.

He continued to have a large presence in the tiebreaker, winning an exchange at the net against Venus at 6-6, then on the French team’s first match point he put away a smash at the net.

Had Venus and Murray been able to take one of those break points at the end of the first set, or clinch one of those set points in the second set tiebreaker, this match could have had a different outcome, but at this level, matches can come down to such fine margins.