Ram & Salisbury go 3-0 in round robin; into semifinals at Nitto ATP Finals

With an unbeaten record in round-robin play, American Rajeev Ram and his British partner Joe Salisbury have qualified for the semifinals in doubles at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, Italy at the top of the Red Group. 

Ram and Salisbury opened their tournament with a 6-1, 7-6(5) win over No. 7 seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares on Monday—their 100th win as a team—in a rematch of September's US Open final, but needed three sets to win each of their other two matches. Wednesday saw the pair come from a set down to beat No. 3 seeds Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert in a thrilling match tiebreak, 6–7(7), 6–0, 13-11, where they saved two match points, while their 3-0 record was secured with a 7–5, 2–6, 11-9 win against No. 5 Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah of Colombia on Friday.

Ram and Salisbury advanced to play top seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic, who finished second in the Green Group. The world No. 1s and Wimbledon champions qualified for the semifinals with a 2-1 record, sealing their spot in the knockout rounds with a 6-4, 7-6(6) win over Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Filip Polasek of Slovakia. The duos have played five previous times this season with the Croatian pair winning four in Miami, Rome, Eastbourne and at Wimbledon. However, Ram and Salisbury's lone win came in their most recent meeting: a 6-3, 4-6, 10-3 decision in the championship match at the National Bank Open presented by Rogers in Toronto.

The other semifinal will see Mahut and Herbert, who qualified behind Ram and Salisbury in the Red Group, take on Marcel Granollers of Spain and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, who won the Green Group. For the first time since 2007, the tournament's top four seeds all reached the semifinals. 

Ram and Salisbury are through to the semifinals at the Nitto ATP Finals for the second straight year, having matched the result they recorded last year at the O2 Arena in London. There, they were beaten by Austria's Jurgen Melzer and France's Edouard Roger-Vasselin, the eventual runners-up.