There will be a New Zealand winner of the doubles title at the ATP tournament in Marseille and Michael Venus and his South African partner Raven Klaasen advanced to their first tour final together.
Michael Venus Photo: Photosport
The top seeds have come from a set down to beat French third seeds Julien Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut 3-6, 7-6,(4) 10-8 in 1 hr 24. They will play New Zealand's Marcus Daniell and his British partner Dominic Inglot for the title after they won their semi-final yesterday.
For the best part of a set and a half the scenario seemed unlikely as the French combination dominated the opening set and broke serve twice before winning it 6-3 in 23 minutes. Venus saved a break point in his opening game of the second set and then he and Klaasen created two break point chances in the 8th game but couldn't convert. It went to a tie break and Venus and Klaasen levelled the match with some strong serving.
The first to 10 points match tiebreak was tight until 6-6 when Venus and Klaasen won a point against their opponents serve and then held serve twice to bring up three match points at 9-6. They converted on their third match point.
Daniell will be chasing his 4th ATP title while Venus will be seeking his 8th, his last coming at last year's French Open with Ryan Harrison. A win for Venus will lift him 3 places to 14th in the ATP rankings while victory for Daniell will see him potentially climb a couple of spots to a career high of 32.
Both Venus and Klaasen and Daniell and Inglot will head to Dubai straight after the final for the ATP 500 tournament. Venus and Klaasen are seeded 4th and have been drawn against India's Rohan Bopanna and Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the first round.
Daniell and Inglot have received a tough draw against the second seeds Jean-Julien Roger and Horia Tecau who are the US Open champions.
Romanian, Tecau was Daniell's partner when he won his first ATP tour title in Auckland in 2010.
Meanwhile the third top 100 ranked Kiwi doubles player Artem Sitak has headed to Sao Paulo in Brazil for the ATP 250 tournament there where he and Dutch partner Wesley Koolhof are the 4th seeds.
They have been drawn against Dutchman Sander Arends and German Andre Begeman in the first round.
