Ram wins Australian Open men's doubles title

Rajeev Ram captured the first Grand Slam men's doubles title of his career Sunday, teaming with Joe Salisbury of Great Britain to win the Australian Open.

Ram, 35, and Salisbury, 27, defeated Aussie wild cards Max Purcell and Luke Saville, 6-4, 6-2, to claim their first major doubles championship together as a team.

"I've been at it awhile, so to actually get one is great," said Ram (pictured above right), who claimed his first Grand Slam men’s doubles title in his 58th major appearance.

It is the second Slam title for Ram, who also captured the Australian Open mixed doubles title with Barbora Krejcikova last year.

Ram, from Carmel, Ind., becomes the first American, other than the Bryan brothers, to win the men's doubles title in Melbourne since Rick Leach teamed with South African Ellis Ferreira in 2000. He is the 14th American man to win the Australian Open men's doubles title in the Open era.

The No. 11 seeds dropped just one set during the tournament—in their 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 semifinal win over Alexander Bublik and Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan. They defeated one other seeded pair—No. 6 Marcel Granollers of Spain and Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, 6-4, 7-6—en route to the title.

"We knew we were ready [going into the final]. We were playing really well this whole time," Ram said. "We had a very tough match in the semis, but I think getting through that the way we did helped us. We really made it about us—about our energy, about our attitude and our competitiveness and sort of let that be the leading and the driving force to let our tennis shine through.

"Right from the get go, I felt like we were both really right on it."

This is the fifth major that Ram and Salisbury have played together as a team and the first time the duo has advanced passed the quarterfinals of a Slam.

They have won three titles together since joining forces in 2019, taking home trophies in Dubai and Vienna before winning Sunday in Melbourne. The duo reached the quarterfinals at last year's French Open and qualified for the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals in London.

Ram, who has strictly been playing doubles on the ATP Tour since 2017, is a former collegiate player, having competed one year at the University of Illinois in 2003, when he helped lead the undefeated 32-0 Fighting Illini to their first NCAA team title. He also won the NCAA Doubles title with Brian Wilson that year.

Salisbury also played college tennis, competing for four years, from 2010-14, at the University of Memphis, where he graduated with a degree in economics and is the team's most successful doubles player in history, with 97 doubles match-wins.

Ram has now won 20 men's doubles titles in his career, with 12 different partners. He reached a career-high doubles ranking of No. 9 in October 2019 and is projected to move up to a new career high of No. 5 in the world when the rankings are released Monday.

Purcell and Saville were looking to become the first all-Australian team to win the men’s doubles title in Melbourne since Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde in 1997.