The New Zealand tennis player Michael Venus has won his maiden world tour title at the Nice Open in France.
New Zealand tennis player Michael Venus. Photo: Photosport
Venus and his Croatian doubles partner Mate Pavic stunned the top seeds Horia Tecau and Jean Julien Rojer in the final of the ATP tournament.
The 63rd ranked Venus and 67th ranked Pavic clinched a 7-6, 2-6, 10-8 victory over their opponents ranked 11th and 12th in the world respectively.
"It was a really good day," said Venus. "For us to win our first title together, we're really excited. It's a great build-up for next week going into the French Open. Hopefully we can continue playing well."
"It was a tough match," added Pavic. "We played very well in the first set. We got down a bit in the second set but in the Match tie-break we played some good points and eventually won it.
"We started a few months ago playing together. We've had some good results so we're going to try to keep playing together and hopefully do better in the future."
Pavic and Venus defeated Marcus Daniell and Mikhail Kukushkin in the first round, fourth seeds David Marrero and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi in the quarter-finals and Martin Emmrich and Andreas Siljestrom in the semi-finals en-route to the title.
It is the first team title for Pavic and Venus and the first time Venus has reached an ATP World Tour final of any kind.
They split $NZ36,584 in prize money and 250 rankings points.
New Zealand will have three male players in the upcoming French Open doubles main draw for the first time since 1985.
Artem Sitak partners the American Nicholas Monroe, Venus teams up again with Pavic and Marcus Daniell will appear in his first Grand Slam with the Belgian Steve Darcis.