Venus, Mektic battle through to second round in Madrid

Michael Venus and Nikola Mektic defeated a tricky team to advance to the second round of the Madrid Open.

On Sunday, the No 6 seeds for the ATP 1000 tournament beat Ariel Behar from Uruguay and Belgium’s Joran Vliegen 7-5 3-6 10-7 in a match that lasted an hour and 32 minutes.

Venus and Mektic, from Croatia, got the only break of the opening set towards the end of it, but they were broken in their opening service game of the second set.

In the tiebreak, Behar and Vliegen were up 6-4, but Venus and Mektic won the next four points to move into a strong position and soon after they clinched the match.

In the second round, Venus and Mektic will play against the all-Italian duo of Flavio Cobolli and Lorenzo Musetti, who are both singles specialists.

Venus has reached the semifinals in Madrid twice during his career, in 2022 and 2024 and on both of those occasions he partnered with Britain’s Jamie Murray.