Michael Venus is through to the final of the men's doubles and the semi-final of the mixed doubles after a busy day at Wimbledon.
Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen defeated Frederik Nielsen from Denmark and local hope Joe Salisbury 7-6 3-6 6-3 6-4 in Thursday's semifinal, in a match that lasted two hours 21 minutes.
In Saturday's final they will take on the American duo of Jack Sock and Mike Bryan, who won their semifinal 6-3 6-1 6-7 7-6 6-4 over Dominic Inglot from Britain and Croatia's Franko Skugor.
This victory was more straight forward for Venus and Klaasen following their two previous five set matches.
"The first set was tight, we saved a break point or two on Raven's serve there, if we'd lost one of those points it could have been a different story," Venus said.
"But we managed to get through that tiebreaker after being up in it a few times, but they kept coming back.
"That really helped us and although they played a great game in the second set to break us, we said to each other that if they can hit four balls like that in a row, that close to the lines, there's nothing we can do.
"So we stuck to our plan, kept working away and tried to find a gap on their games to get a break.
"Raven was returning well and I just needed to help him out a bit, get a few more points and when I made a couple he continued to return well and we got those breaks of serve."
It will be Venus' third grand slam final in 13 months, having won the men's doubles in last year's French Open and lost in the mixed doubles in the US Open.
Venus said while those were incredible moments, there's something special about going all the way at Wimbledon.
"It's really exciting," he said.
"It's the one grand slam you look at the most when you're growing up, so to be playing here, in the final and back out on centre court, there should be another great atmosphere and I'm really looking forward to the opportunity."
Meanwhile just hours after his semi final win, Venus was back on court for his mixed doubles quarter final with Slovenian Katarina Srebotnik.
The duo beat Ivan Dodig and Latisha Chan in three sets - 7-5, 3-6, 6-0.
They'll face Austrian Alexander Peya and American Nicole Melichar in the semis on Saturday.
-RNZ
