Michael Venus is through to his first doubles quarterfinal at the US Open in his 11th attempt after an epic three-set match in the third round.
Seeded eighth, Venus and Britain's Neal Skupski beat the American wildcard pair of Tristan Boyer and Emilio Nava in three sets 3-6, 7-6(3) 6-4 in just over two hours.
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Venus has a great record at the other three Grand Slams having won the French Open as well as being a finalist at Wimbledon and plenty, in fact he'd reached the quarters or better on eight occasions
However, he had never gone past the third round in New York, until now.
"I'm been coming for quite a few years so it good to make it to the quarterfinals, let's hope we can keep it going. Any time you play a third round match everyone good they've won some matches.
These guys are American's on their home court and home crowd and were playing well, they served big. We stuck to game plan and trusted it," said Venus.
Against two Americans in their early 20's the more experienced Kiwi and Brit found themselves down a break early and trailing 0-3 in the first set and eventually dropping it 3-6.
In the second they served first to sustain the lead before taking the tiebreak relatively easily 7-3 against a barrage of powerful shots.
In the third set Venus and Skupski broke early and kept up their momentum against the Americans who were hyped for the whole match and hit 46 winners including a couple off the serve of Venus.
As the match progressed in the third set the intensity of the wildcard players dropped off and their unforced errors increased to a total of 26, whereas Venus and Skupski made 15 errors in total
In the quarterfinals they'll face fourth seeds Marcelo Arevalo from El Salvador and Croatian Mate Pavic.
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