Qonce-born Klaasen, McLachlan triumph in Washington

World-acclaimed SA and Qonce-born doubles player Raven Klaasen and his Japanese partner Ben McLachlan captured the Citi Open doubles trophy in Washington to record their first ATP Tour title of the season.

The fourth seeded pair overcame second seeds Neal Skupski of the UK and Michael Venus of New Zealand 7-6(4) 6-4 to lift the ATP 500 title on Sunday night.

Klaasen and McLachlan did not drop a set en route to their second ATP Tour title as a team — they also won the 2020 Cologne-2 in Germany together.

“Yeah, I mean, fantastic,” defending champion Klaasen told ASAP Sports.

“Ben and I have had a long season. We’ve had couple of big wins.

“To finally get over the hump, we have lost a couple of semis, it’s nice to finish things off.

Especially in Washington kind of where we were defending. I had won the title in 2019. It was nice to come out here and do it again.

“He (Ben McLachlan) carried me the first set, for sure. I thought we had a good start and unfortunately went down a break.

“Second set we were hanging on for dear life.

“We probably were the worse team in the second set, but being together for more than a year now, the experience helps and hopefully we can build on that.

“I mean, with this scoring system, you know that things can change in a heartbeat.

“We have been on the receiving end of some tough losses from that position, and we knew that if we kind of hang tough mentally, to close out the set is quite difficult, I think.

“We made a couple of key returns at the right moment to keep us alive.

“That’s the mental challenge, trying to stay alive mentally when things aren’t going your way.

“Fortunately, today it worked out for us.

“Sometimes it doesn’t, but with experience, you learn that you’ve got to hang in there till the end of the set.

“Very happy things went our way today.

Meanwhile, Rafa Nadal said he had not yet fully recovered from a foot issue that kept him out of Wimbledon and the Tokyo Olympics but hoped a US Open tune-up event in Toronto would help him to regain confidence in his on-court movements.

Nadal’s first event since his semifinal loss at the French Open ended in a shock third-round exit to SA’s Lloyd Harris in Washington on Thursday and the Spaniard admitted his left foot was holding him back.

“It’s been a couple of tough months for me in terms of physical issues,” world number three Nadal told reporters at the Masters 1000 event in Toronto starting this week.

“I know I am not at my peak yet but I think I have been practising better than what I played in Washington so I am excited to keep going here and be able to play a little bit better than there.”

Nadal said a recurring foot issue he has been dealing with since 2005 returned at Roland Garros, where he fell to eventual champion Novak Djokovic in the semifinals before deciding to sit out two of the year’s biggest events.

“Some moments the situation is worse and some moments the situation is better,” Nadal said.

“After Paris my foot was not recovering.

“I was in a lot of pain for a couple of weeks so I couldn’t train.

“I stayed around 20 days without touching a racket, trying to recover.” — Tennis SA, additional reporting by Reuters