Kiwi Michael Venus has fallen out of the Australian Open doubles tournament at the quarter-final stage, with he and partner Raven Klaasen losing in straight sets to the duo of Leonardo Mayer and Joao Sousa.
In a bid to reach the semi-finals, Venus and Klaasen were immediately in trouble. They dropped the first set to the unseeded pair, with Mayer and Sousa breaking serve in the opening game before surviving a spirited fightback from the Kiwi-South African pair.
The second set saw a much more dogged performance from Venus and Klaasen. However, Mayer and Sousa held firm, with a tiebreaker needed to separate the pairs.
In the end, Mayer and Sousa proved too strong for Venus and Klaasen, eventually taking the tiebreaker 8-6 and advancing to the semi-finals with a 6-4, 7-6 scoreline.
Mayer and Sousa will face the winner of the second quarter-final clash, coming between third seeds Jamie Murray [Great Britain] and Bruno Soares, who face off against the 12th seeded Henri Kontinen [Finland] and John Peers [Australia].
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