Venus, Skupski pipped in Vienna final

Michael Venus and Neal Skupski came up just short against their Austrian opponents in the final of the ATP 500 tournament in Vienna on Sunday.

Venus was going for the 25th title of his career, but he and his British partner lost 4-6 6-3 10-1 to Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler in a final played in front of a huge crowd on Centre Court.

Venus and Skupski played their Austrian opponents in the first round of Wimbledon in July, winning the tiebreak at the end of the third set 10-5, so they knew going into this final that it wasn’t going to be easy. 

Erler and Miedler came into this tournament in good form, winning the doubles title in Antwerp earlier this month.

The Austrians had to win sudden death deuce points on their first two service games, which they did and in the fifth game, on Venus’s serve they had two break points.

But they only needed one of them as Venus missed with a backhand down the line.

In the eighth game, with Miedler serving, the Austrians were up 40-30 and looked to be close to taking another step towards taking the opening set, but both players made unforced errors going for the winning shot on the next two points, so the score went to 4-4.

Skupski’s serve was broken in the opening game of the second set and their opponents went out to a 3-0 lead before taking the set 6-3 to send the final into a third set super tiebreak.

The momentum was with Erler and Miedler right from the beginning of it as they raced out to a 5-0 lead and although the following point went the way of Venus and Skupski, the Austrians picked up the next five to win the title.

Venus and Skupski will now head to France to play in the Paris Masters. In the first round they have been drawn against Joe Salisbury from Britain and the Netherlands’ Jean-Julien Rojer.