Michael Venus

Venus's family moved to the United States, where he won the Boys’ 18 National Clay Courts in 2006. His idols were Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. He vacillated between going to college or turning professional and trying the senior tour, but decided to go for the College Conference. Having represented the U.S. through college, he switched nationalities in June 2010 to the country of his birth, and began playing for the New Zealand Davis Cup team.

In 2018 he made the men's doubles final at Wimbledon with Raven Klaasen, losing to Mike Bryan and Jack Sock, and was a semifinalist in the mixed doubles there as well, with Katarina Srebotnik. He and Klaasen qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals, but won only one round-robin match.

Venus began the new year in Brisbane, where he teamed up with Marcelo Demoliner to win the first round but lose the second. Back to his home event in Auckland, Venus was given a wild card into the singles, but was unfortunate enough to draw World number 20 (and eventual winner) Roberto Bautista-Agut in the first round, being beaten 6–2, 6–1. In the doubles, he and new partner Raven Klaasen won their first two matches before being beaten 7–6, 7–6 in their semi-final by Max Mirnyi and Philipp Oswald.

Seeded 8th in the Australian Open, Venus and Klaasen lost a titanic first set tie-break 14–16, and a more straightforward one in the second set, to go down 7–6, 7–6 to Scott Lipsky and David Marrero. Venus and Chan won their first mixed doubles match comfortably, but were well-beaten in the second round by eventual semi-finalists Marcelo Demoliner and María José Martínez Sánchez.

They then went to Marseille, where they won the Open 13 Provence. It was special for Venus on two counts – he was winning the tournament for the second time, having been successful with Mate Pavić in 2016, and it was also the first time that two New Zealanders had contested an ATP World Tour doubles final on opposite sides of the net, the runners-up being Marcus Daniell (New Zealand) and Dominic Inglot. This had previously happened only in one Challenger (Daniell and Rubin Statham in Adelaide in 2014) and several ITF Futures events. A week later they were in Dubai, where they lost in the second round.

Venus and Klaasen started the European clay court season at the Monte-Carlo Masters. After an easy win in the first round, and a walkover in the second, they lost 7–6, 6–3 to Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini in the quarter-finals. Looking to defend the title he had won at Estoril the previous year, Venus and Klaasen were beaten in the first round. In Madrid they made it through to the quarter-finals, losing to Nikola Mektic and Alexander Peya, while in Rome they lost in the second round to Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares.

Moving on to Roland-Garros to defend his title in the French Open, Venus and Klaasen were seeded 10th, and disposed of French teams in the first two rounds, before meeting eighth seeds Mektic and Peya in the third round. The higher-ranked pair were again their nemesis, but the win was not without a struggle, as the final score of 7–6, 7–6 would indicate. Venus and Chan Hao-ching teamed up again for the mixed doubles, but were well-beaten in the first round by Matwe Middelkoop and Demi Schuurs.

Venus and Klaasen started their grass court season at 's-Hertogenbosch, where Venus had won the title two years earlier with Mate Pavić. Ironically it had been Klaasen who was on the losing end that day, and his then partner, Dominic Inglot, faced the pair in the final, this time alongside Croatian Franko Škugor. In a very tight match, it was the European pair who prevailed 7–6, 7–5. They then moved on to Halle where, as seeds, it was a surprise that they were beaten in the first round by Tim Puetz and Jan-Lennard Struff. Their last tournament before Wimbledon was at Eastbourne where, again slightly surprisingly, they lost in the second round to Ken and Neal Skupski.

Wimbledon would be another milestone in Venus's career, as he came so close to winning his second major title, and was only one step further back in pursuit of a mixed doubles crown as well. In the men's doubles, Venus and Klaasen had straightforward wins in the first two rounds, followed by marathon five set encounters in the next two over Leonardo Mayer and Joao Sousa and then Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, the latter a nice revenge for the loss in Rome. The semi-final win over Frederik Nielsen and Joe Salisbury took four sets, but the final against Mike Bryan and Jack Sock was a classic encounter: another five set match in which all four players demonstrated moments of absolute magic, but it was the American pair who eventually prevailed, the final score being 6–3, 6–7, 6–3, 5–7, 7–5.

Venus had a new partner in Katarina Srebotnik for the mixed doubles. Seeded ninth, they had a bye in the first round, then took three sets to beat Andrei Vasilevski and Anastasia Rodionova, and three more to beat the fifth seeds Nikola Mektic and Venus's former doubles partner Chan Hao-ching in a gripping encounter. In the quarter-finals they had an easy finish over Ivan Dodig and Chan's sister Latisha after splitting the first two sets, but Srebotnik losing her serve in both sets spelt the end of their run when they reached the semi-final, going down 6–4, 6–4, to Nicole Melichar and Alexander Peya.

After a short break, Venus and Klaasen headed to Washington DC, where they went down in the semi-finals of the Citi Open to Murray and Soares in straight sets, 7–5, 7–6. From there they went to the Rogers Cup in Toronto, where they beat Artem Sitak and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round, before defeating the seeded pairs of Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo, their Wimbledon conquerors Mike Bryan and Jack Sock, and finally the top seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic to reach the final against second seeds Henri Kontinen and John Peers. They lost the first set when Klaasen lost both his service games, but saved three match points in the second set tie-break before eventually succumbing 10–6 in the match tie-break. They followed that up with the next Masters 1000 event, in Cincinnati, where they lost in the second round to Kubot and Melo.

In the US Open Venus played both men's and mixed doubles, losing in the second round in both. In the men's event he and Klaasen were seeded eighth, but lost to Maximo Gonzalez and Nicolás Jarry in straight sets after beating singles specialists Lukas Lacko and John Millman. In the mixed doubles he again played with Srebotnik, and they were the seventh seeds. They defeated former Grand Slam champions Laura Siegemund and Rohan Bopanna in the first round before falling to Raluca Olaru and Franko Skugor in the second, beaten 16–14 in a monumental match tie-break which lasted 22 minutes.

From there Venus travelled to Korea, where he joined the New Zealand team in their Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group I relegation playoff tie against the hosts. Playing only singles, Venus lost to Lee Duck-hee and Hong Seong-chan. Losing the tie 2–3, New Zealand returned to the Asia/Oceania Group II for the first time in five years.

Venus and Klaasen started the year in Auckland at the ASB Classic, where they had revenge for their loss in Miami to the Bryan brothers by beating them comfortably in the semi-final, before once again finding Ben McLachlan and Jan-Lennard Struff too strong in a final, being beaten 6–3, 6–4.

Seeded sixth, Venus and Klaasen lost the first set in their first round match at the Australian Open, but took the next two to beat Bradley Klahn and Mikhail Kukushkin. They then had straight sets wins over Marcus Daniell and Wesley Koolhof in the second round, and Marcelo Demoliner and Frederik Nielsen in the third, before surprisingly being beaten in the quarter-finals by Leonardo Mayer and João Sousa, 6–4, 7–6. Venus had another new partner in the mixed doubles, rising American star Danielle Collins, but they were beaten in the first round by Chan Hao-ching and Jean-Julien Rojer.

In contrast to the men's doubles, Venus and Chan progressed majestically through their first four matches without dropping a set, beating Latisha Chan and Ivan Dodig, 7–6 (3), 7–5, in the semi-final. In the final they came up against Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jamie Murray who, incredibly, were not seeded, despite winning the previous year. The major difference between the pairs was that Chan could hold serve only once in the match, and the defending champions eventually won comfortably, 6–2, 6–3, in 59 minutes. It was Murray's third title in a row, having partnered Martina Hingis to beat Chan and Venus in 2017.

The last Masters tournament of the year is in Paris, where Venus and Klaasen were upset in the first round by Marcus Daniell and Philipp Oswald. They moved on to the ATP World Tour Finals in London, where they were seeded fifth. They won their first two round-robin matches before falling to Dodig and Polášek for a third successive time. They had already guaranteed themselves a semi-final position, though, where they beat the top seeds Cabal and Farah to gain revenge for their Wimbledon defeat. They had to save a match point at 8–9 in the second set tie-break, but won the first five points in the match tie-break on the way to a 6–7 (5), 7–6 (10), 10–6 victory. That put them up against the seventh seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in the final. Just one service break was required in each set, with both teams saving two deciding points before the French pair won 6–3, 6–4.

The home of grass court tennis proved almost as good to them as it had a year earlier, this time getting as far as the semi-finals. Seeded third, they had three straight sets victories to start, before a marathon five set win over Henri Kontinen and John Peers in their quarter-final. The semi-final saw them come up against Cabal and Farah yet again, the Colombians prevailing in four sets. They would go on to win the title and become joint World Number One in the doubles rankings. Venus teamed up again with Katarina Srebotnik for the mixed doubles, where they were seeded 10th and received a bye to the second round, where they lost a really tight match to the French Open semi-finalists Nadiia Kichenok and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi.

In July Venus clinched the title of USA F17 Futures beating Vasek Pospisil in the final. He reached the doubles final of the USA F19 Futures in August teaming with Colt Gaston losing in two straight sets. At the end of the month Venus earned a wild card to the qualifying draw of the 2009 US Open in which he advanced to the second round overcoming Uruguay's Marcel Felder in two sets but failing to qualify by losing to Giovanni Lapentti of Ecuador. In October The Venus-Harrison pair won the USA F24 Futures against fellow Kudla-Sarmiento and in November playing with Gaston they lost in the championship match in the USA F27 Futures against the Armenian-Russian duo Martirosyan-Sitak. He reached his career year-end high of 587.

Venus transferred to Louisiana State University from the University of Texas after his freshman year and sat out the 2006–2007 season, following NCAA guidelines. In his first year at LSU, Venus became the first LSU player to win the ITA Men’s All-American Championship at the national tournament in Tulsa, Oklahoma in January 2008. He is one of only two Louisianan college players to finish in the top ten of the Campbell's ITA College Tennis Rankings in both singles and doubles in the same year (No. 7 in singles and No. 4 in doubles, respectively), which he accomplished in his final season in 2008–2009. He was a representative of the United States team in the BNP Paribas International University Challenge of Tennis in Poitiers, France in December 2009.

Michael Venus (born 16 October 1987) is a New Zealand professional tennis player. He reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 274 in July 2011, but now normally plays singles only in Davis Cup matches for New Zealand. He is far better-known as a leading doubles player, whose highest ranking in this discipline is No. 8, gained in August 2019 after winning in Halle. He won the final of the 2017 French Open, partnering with American Ryan Harrison, and followed that with a runner-up finish in the 2017 US Open mixed doubles, with Chan Hao-ching of Chinese Taipei as his partner. He and Harrison qualified for the year-ending Nitto ATP Finals, where they won all three of their round-robin matches to qualify top of their group, but lost in the semifinals to Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo.

Despite playing the final of Baton Rouge Challenger with partner Ryan Harrison, due to his singles performance Venus closed the year at the 1752nd position on the South African Airways ATP rankings.