Routliffe, Venus continue to gel as a team at Australian Open

Erin Routliffe and Michael Venus feel they’re growing as a mixed doubles team, thanks to the number of times they’ve now played together. 

New Zealand’s top male and female doubles players have entered their fourth consecutive grand slam together, with their best result so far being a semifinals appearance at last year’s Wimbledon.

They were partly driven to play together in preparation for last year’s Olympics, although unfortunately, Venus just missed out on qualifying for the Paris Games with Marcus Daniell, which he needed to do in order to enter the mixed doubles with Routliffe.

However, they have continued to pair up together and be an unofficial Team Kiwi at the grand slams. 

On Sunday night in Melbourne Park they defeated Jelena Ostapenko in the first round of the Australian Open, cheered on by several hundred New Zealanders in the crowd and Venus says each time they play together, they get a bit more used to each other.

“Erin is kind enough that she switches and plays on the other side than she normally does,” Venus said. 

“So she has a lot more of a change than I do. But the more you play with someone, you get to understand them, which helps. 

“There is a big gap between tournaments, so a lot of things change during those times, but we're using the same coach now, so there's similar philosophies that we're hearing consistently.

“Then we kind of understand what the other one's thinking or working on or doing too. So I think that helps us.”
Routliffe and Venus are the No 2 seeds in Melbourne, but were pushed hard by their first round opponents and it shouldn’t be any easier in the second round against, Alexandra Panova and Lloyd Glasspool.

“In mixed, it's interesting, because every match is so tough, there are some interesting pairs,” Routliffe said. 

“Obviously, seeding is nice, but at the same time, it doesn't mean very much. 

“I guess you don't get up against the highly rank doubles players. But I feel every time you play someone in the mixed, everyone's really good.”

Meanwhile, there’s been a change in look from Venus this season. He’s no longer wearing Hydrogen clothing, which had some of the most out there designs on the tennis circuit and is now with Paladin, who have more traditional designs to their tennis shirts.

“The Paladin stuff is pretty cool,” Venus said. 

“I spoke to the guys there a couple years ago, and it didn't quite work out. Then we connected again towards the end of last year and I'm super excited to be a part of the team. 

“The stuff they've given me has been great, so for me, it's really nice to be wearing a New Zealand brand and I've really liked the stuff.”