Venus and Daniell both advance to second round at Roland Garros

Michael Venus and Marcus Daniell have won their first-round matches at Roland Garros.

Having to wait until Friday to play at the clay-court grand slam, because of the weather, Venus and Daniell both managed to pick up straight-set wins, with their respective partners.

Venus and Jamie Murray, who are the No 13 seeds, had a convincing 6-1 6-2 win over Pedro Martinez and Jaume Lunar, in a match that lasted just 62 minutes.

Against the two Spanish singles specialists, Venus and Murray never looked like losing, as they broke their opponents’ serve on five occasions.

Daniell and his American partner, Mackenzie McDonald, defeated Francis Tiafoe and Dustin Brown 7-6(3) 6-3 in 79 minutes and it would have been a good confidence boost for Daniell, who is in his final season on the circuit.

This year’s Roland Garros is of more significance than usual for Daniell and Venus as entries for this year’s Olympic Games are determined straight afterwards.

Daniell, who spent almost two years out with a knee injury, won’t be able to improve his protected ranking of 56, even if he wins the tournament with McDonald.

But Venus can move up from his current position of 28 and he is defending the 180 points picked up by making it to the third round in Paris last year.

With their current rankings, it’s not certain Venus and Daniell will be high enough to make it to the Olympics and if they can’t play together in the men’s doubles, Venus wouldn’t be able to team up with Erin Routliffe for the mixed doubles.

In their second-round match at Roland Garros, Venus and Murray are up against the French duo of Lucas Pouille and Gregoire Barrere. This will be the third match on court No 6 on Saturday.

In the third match on Court No 12 Daniell and McDonald play the ninth seeds Marcelo Arevalo from El Salvador and Croatia’s Mate Pavic. 

This match is preceded by Erin Routliffe and Leylah Fernandez’s first-round match in the women’s doubles, where the Kiwi and Canadian take on Guo Hanyu and Jiang Xinyu, who are both from China.

Meanwhile, Venus and Routliffe are the No 6 seeds in the mixed doubles and have been drawn against Chinese Taipei’s Chan Hao-Ching and Hugo Nys from Monaco in the opening round.