Marcus Daniell Ready For NZ Tennis Champs

It’s a rarity for any of the three Kiwi top 100  doubles ranked tennis players to spend time in New Zealand. Mike Venus at No.10, Marcus Daniell ranked 43 and Artem Sitak at 62nd all excel around the world, but spend little time in their home country.

However Daniell is back in New Zealand and ready to relax, by playing another tennis event, this time the 2019 Wellington Open NZ Championships starting at the Renouf Centre in the Capital tomorrow.

Thirty-year-old Daniell will team up with Lower Hutt teen, George Stoupe as top seeds. Stoupe performed admirably when he took the court at the ASB Classic earlier this year and is highly regarded as a top prospect for New Zealand.

“It’s always great to play at ‘home’ in my local tournament,” says Daniell.  “The organisors do a great job of promoting the sport and I like to help out as a local to assist. It’s nice for my family to not have to fly to watch me play. My parents will actually get to see me on the court without the big travel.”

For Daniell 2019 has been an up and down year with success mixed with disruptions.

“I’m not overly happy with my ranking. I had a couple of setbacks early in the year with a major should injury and then splitting with a doubles partner. You can’t just get back on the horse straight away after that,” said Daniell. But there were highlights too.

For the first time he progressed to the last eight at Wimbledon and added to his collection of titles.

“Winning the title at Brisbane was a biggie and making the quarters at Wimbledon was of course up there. There are always highs and lows in a year.”

There was also two runners-up finishes at ATP tournaments in the Netherland’s and Hungary and he got to play on the biggest court in tennis, Arthur Ashe Stadium at the US Open.

Unfortunately he won’t get to defend his Brisbane title as the tournament no longer exists with the new ATP Cup format in the first week of the year. Daniell will see his ranking go down but at least has a regular partner in Philipp Oswald, the Austrian ranked 43rd .

“I’ve decided the travel is too demanding to go to Doha the only ATP tournament in the first week. We had a good end to the year together and we’ll play a Challenger tournament in Canberra to start the year. I’ll lose points with no Brisbane, but it will still be a good tournament to play. We’ll meet in Canberra January 4 and try to get plenty of matches and practice before the ASB Classic and then the Australian Open.”

But first Daniell has to win the title at the Wellington Open NZ Champs which has a strong doubles draw with a number of young players wanting to make their mark.

In singles the likely top seed will be double-defending champion, Finn Tearney ahead of Ajeet Rai with other ATP ranked players such as KP Pannu, Alex Klintcharov, Macsen Sisam and Ollie Statham.

The women’s draw is headed by New Zealand No.1 Paige Hourigan from Whangaui.

The tournament runs from 19-22 December at the Renouf Tennis Centre in Wellington with the finals day televised live on Sky TV.