Ram, Salisbury triumph
dubai — Fourth seeds Rajeev Ram of the US and Joe Salisbury of Great Britain clinched the men’s doubles title of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships with a 7-6 (7/4) 6-3 win over Jan-Lennard Struff of Germany and Ben McLachlan of Japan.
The emphatic win was the first Tour doubles title for the British-American pair since beginning their partnership at the start of this year.
“Yeah, really, really happy. We’ve had a great week. Felt like we were playing well. We had our first final together in Brisbane, felt like we didn’t quite perform as well as we could,” said Salisbury.
“I think today, even if we lost that match, we don’t think we could have done any more. We played really well. Absolutely delighted with it.”
After winning a tight first set in the tie-break, Ram and Salisbury earned the crucial break of serve in the fourth game of the second set before clinching the match in the ninth game.
“I think we complement each other really well. He (Salisbury) is Photo by Neeraj Murali just a super athlete on the court, covers a lot of space,” Ram said.
“I think we both served quite well. I don’t think we actually faced a breakpoint all week, which is pretty good,” the 34-year-old American added. “I think that was the key to us winning here. We played some big-serving teams, especially the last two rounds.”
Inspired by Saturday’s win, Salisbury said he would continue his partnership with Ram. “Yeah, definitely. I mean, we’re planning to play together at least the rest of the year,” he said.