The first doubles quarter-final in Tokyo was another of those matches that we’ve seen quite often recently, where the serving has generally been so good that there’s been no opportunity for anyone to set up and execute shots that will stick in your memory. When a team loses only two points on their serve in an entire set it makes life very difficult for their opponents, and that was how Sander Gillé and Joran Vliegen got the jump on Michael Venus and Jamie Murray.
Venus and the left-handed Vliegen served first for their respective teams, each finishing with an ace, and Murray hit one, too. The best rally of the match came at the end of the next game, Gillé holding serve when he finished the exchange with a comfortable cross-court forehand winner after 13 shots. Vliegen started Murray’s next game by swinging a beautiful forehand return form the middle into the tramlines, and the Scot followed that by hitting a poor smash into the bottom of the net. A beautiful cross-court backhand lob from Vliegen took the score to 0-40 – and Murray double faulted to lose the game.
There was a great rally to start the next game, Venus being forced to hit a lobbed backhand over the baseline after 12 shots, but he hit a couple of aces on the way to winning his own next game. That still left Vliegen serving for the set and, after he lost a short rally on the first point when his cross-court forehand deflected way wide off the net cord, he thumped four aces in a row to close it out after 29 minutes.
Gillé hit a fabulous lobbed backhand return off Venus in the first game of the second set, but it was the only point lost in the game. Gillé went next, and we got a glimpse of the quality of umpire Kinuka Ota’s eyesight when she overruled an out call on the sideline not far from her chair and was proven right by the FoxTenn replay when Murray challenged the call. The replayed point went to the Belgians anyway when Vliegen let the ball bounce before smashing it away, but they had to save a break point after Gillé hit a backhand wide. The next return from Venus went into the net, which was also where Murray was forced to put his return of the deciding point.
Venus hit a beautiful angled backhand volley in the next game, but his forced error at the end of a great rally dropped Murray back to deuce. Gillé took the deciding point, but his return of serve went exactly where Murray’s had gone in the previous game. There was a fantastic rally in the next game, which Venus lost when pushed a cross-court backhand over the baseline, and another on the first point when Venus served again, this one going to a fabulous forehand volley from Gillé. Even then, though, the servers were never in trouble until it came to the last game of the set, with Vliegen serving to take them to a tie-break.
He had been the best server in the match to that point, with his team losing just two points on his serve, but it all went wrong in this one game. He lost a good rally on the first point when he hit a backhand into the net, and Venus took the good short rally on the second point with a fabulous cross-court forehand winner. An ace down the middle to Murray was followed by the same to Venus – except the challenge showed that the ball had landed on the wrong side of the centre line. The second serve was a fault as well, and Gillé was forced to hit a backhand volley into the net to lose the set after 45 minutes.
Vliegen and Murray each lost their first point in the match tie-break, and Gillé did as well, all before the change of ends. That last mini-break got cancelled out when Venus double faulted, but Vliegen was forced to hit a forehand into the net to lose his second point. Murray won both his points before Venus hit a fabulous backhand return off Gillé through the middle of the court, and that gave his team four match points. Only one was needed, with Gillé pushing a backhand into the net to lose his second point as well. The final score was 4-6, 7-5, 10-5, and the match took an hour and 31 minutes. In the semi-final they will face Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow for the sixth time this year. Venus and Murray lead the head to head three matches to two.