20 Jan 2018

Daniell through to third round of Aus Open doubles

7:17 pm on 20 January 2018

New Zealand tennis player Marcus Daniell and his British doubles partner Dominic Inglot have romped into the third round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

The duo thrashed the French pairing of Benoit Paire and Hugo Nys 6-4, 6-2 in 53 minutes.

The draw has opened up for Daniell who had expected to face fourth seeds Nicolas Mahut and Pierre Hugues Herbert of France for a place in the quarter finals.

However they have been upset in a third set tie break by the relatively unknown combination of Chilean Hans-Castillo-Poolipink and Belarussian Andrei Vasilevski.

Daniell and Inglot beat Poolipink and Vasilevski en-route to reaching the semi-finals at the ATP tournament in Basel last October.

"We had a close match against them and they are a rising team and have won two close matches. We know them and are ready to dominate." Daniell said.

Against Paire and Nys, Daniell and Inglot benefited from Paire struggling with a stomach muscle problem and being unable to serve properly.

"Paire was injured and serving strangely, so it took us a while to get a read on it but we closed out pretty comprehensively." Daniell said.

Daniell and Inglot won a tightly contested first set 6-4 converting one of their three break point chances. They were dominant on serve getting 81 percent of first serves in in the opening set.

In the second set Daniell and Inglot took control with an early break and broke again to cruise through it in 24 minutes. The Kiwi and Brit never faced a break point against their serve in the entire match and won a total of 57 points to 41.

Having reached the second week at Melbourne Park, Daniell is adamant he's not finished yet.

"I'm ready to go deep in a slam, so no reason why it can't be this one."

-RNZ