Erin Routliffe and Michael Venus both suffered close super tiebreak losses on Friday (Saturday NZ time) in Washington.
Venus and his new partner Indian Yuki Bhambri went down 6-3 4-6 10-7 to Neal Skupski from Britain and Australia’s John-Patrick Smith in a quarterfinal match that lasted for just over an hour and a half.
The super tiebreak was close for the first half of it, on serve at 4-5, but Skupski and Smith then got a couple of mini breaks on the next two points and were able to keep that lead for the remainder of the match.
Later in the day, Routliffe and her partner for the week, Asia Muhammad, lost their semifinal against Caroline Dolehide and Sofia Kenin 7-6(4) 6-4.
Routliffe and Muhammad did have a 5-3 lead in the opening set, but the Americans then got on top and were up 6-5 before play had to be suspended for lightning.
At the resumption, Dolehide and Kenin finished off the first set, where over it they managed to save five set points against they.
Dolehide and Kenin then went on to pick up the only break of the second set.
Despite losing, Routliffe and Muhammaed won eight points more than their opponents over the match, but a key factor was that they eon six of the seven deciding points.
Routliffe will stay at No 4 in the world rankings when they’re next updated.
Venus is predicted to remain at 22 in the ATP’s doubles rankings, but would drop to 23 if Andres Molteni wins his semifinal with Maximo Gonzalez against Hugo Nys and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.
With Routliffe and Venus finished in Washington, Routliffe will head to Montreal for the WTA 1000 tournament, while Venus goes to Toronto for the ATP 1000 event.
Lulu Sun hasn’t entered a tournament for next week.