Marcus Daniell

EVENT: Tennis - Men's Double

Marcus Daniell helped create history at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 when he and Michael Venus won the bronze medal in the men’s doubles tennis. It was New Zealand's first Olympic tennis medal since Anthony Wilding won the bronze medal in the singles at Stockholm in 1912.

In the first round in Tokyo, the unseeded New Zealanders beat Belarusians Yegor Gerasimov and Ilya Ivanshka 6-3, 7-6, squeezing through the second set tiebreak 8-6. Next up they had some good fortune when the eighth-seeded Dutch pair of Wesley Koolhof and Jean-Julien Rojer defaulted to them after returning a positive Covid test.

Into the quarter-finals, Daniell and Venus beat Juan Cabal and Robert Farah of Colombia, the third seeds, 6-3, 3-6, 10-7.

Croatians Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig were far too good in the semi-final, winning 6-2, 6-2. The New Zealanders were off form and were disappointed with their performance.

But they bounced back superbly in the bronze medal play-off and dispatched Americans Austin Krajicek and Tennys Sandgren 7-6, 6-2 in 108 minutes. The New Zealanders gelled so well that tennis fans wondered why they had not played together more often on the pro tour.

Venus, then aged 33, went into the Tokyo event with a world ranking of 11, but Daniell, then aged 31, had run into leaner times and was ranked 50th.

It was the second Olympic Games for Daniell and Venus, who lost a heartbreakingly close first round match at Rio de Janeiro in 2016. They were beaten by the seventh-seeded Canadian pairing of Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil 4-6, 6-3, 7-6, losing the third set tiebreak 8-6.

Daniell, born in Masterton in 1989, turned professional in 2008 and for several years attempted to make his way in singles. He eventually focused on doubles and forged a very successful career.

He was selected to compete in singles and doubles at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, but was forced to withdraw from the team because of a back injury.

His best showings in Grand Slam events were reaching the Australian Open doubles quarter-finals in 2018 and 2021 and the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 2019. He has played 18 Davis Cup ties from 2010-24, and won 12 doubles matches and lost six. He played three singles matches, winning two.

Daniell has made 15 ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) doubles finals, winning five, and was been ranked as high as 34 in the world in 2018.

He suffered a knee injury in early 2022 which ruled him out for the rest of that year and nearly all of 2023. He returned to the professional tour in 2024 when he also played in a Davis Cup tie against Turkey in Auckland.

Daniell was a member of ATP Player Council in 2021-22.

He was the ATP’s 2021 Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award winner, following his extensive charity work. He founded High Impact Athletes in 2020, which channels charitable donations to the most effective, evidence-based charities in the world, specifically in the fields of extreme poverty and environmental impact. He is also member of Giving What We Can.

Daniell has donated a portion of his prize money to charities since 2015. This gradually increased to 10% of his earnings from 2021. In 2024, as he approached his final year in professional tennis, he pledged to donate half his winnings for the year to help fight child poverty, animal abuse and the impacts of climate change.

Daniell has been nominated by the New Zealand Olympic Committee as a candidate for the IOC Athletes’ Commission.

For much of his professional career, Daniell has been based in England.