Ram, Rajeev

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares179 Views

    An Extraordinary Men’s Doubles Three-Peat at the U.S. Open

    by

    Rajeev Ram of the United States and Joe Salisbury of Britain are the first pair to win three straight doubles titles in New York in the Open era.The 2023 U.S. Open has been characterized by the emergence of several young American stars seeking their first major titles. For Rajeev Ram, the veteran American doubles specialist, winning titles here is becoming repetitive.Ram, 39, and Joe Salisbury of Britain won the men’s doubles title on Friday afternoon and became the first team to win three straight men’s doubles titles at the U.S. national championships in 109 years.They beat No. 6 Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, in a match underscored by an act of notable sportsmanship.The last team to win three U.S. Open championships in a row was the all-American duo of Tom Bundy and Maurice McLoughlin, who did it from 1912 to 1914. Ram, who is from Carmel, Ind., calls himself a tennis history buff, making the achievement even more meaningful to him.“It will be something that I will carry with me forever,” he said.The No. 3 seeds, Ram and Salisbury also won the 2020 Australian Open. But this title may have been just as unexpected after they rebounded from a difficult year to win the final major of the circuit. They had won only one previous tournament this year, the Lyon Open in France in May, and were 4-6 in their last 10 matches coming into the U.S. Open. Then, in the final, they played a terrible first set before recovering to win.Other legendary doubles pairs have compiled impressive streaks at different Grand Slams, including John McEnroe and Peter Fleming, who won four titles in six years at Wimbledon; the Woodies — Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge — who won five in a row at Wimbledon; and Bob and Mike Bryan, who won three in a row and six in eight years in Australia. But none of those duos were able to string together three straight at the U.S. Open, the last major of the calendar year.Ram said it is extraordinarily difficult to win three U.S. Opens in a row. “A lot has to go right,” he said. “You have to get really lucky.”Americans have made a strong showing at this year’s U.S. Open, with Coco Gauff reaching Saturday’s final in women’s singles and another American woman, Madison Keys, going as far as the semifinals. In the men’s singles, three Americans made it to the final eight, and Ben Shelton reached a semifinal, where he lost to No. 2 Novak Djokovic in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday.Ram, 39, and Salisbury, 31, won their earlier match on the same court. After it was over, Salisbury put a towel over his head, hiding tears that he acknowledged later.“I don’t know why this one seems more emotional than the others,” Salisbury said. “I don’t remember crying after any matches, especially not ones that we’ve won, even at the Grand Slams. There’s something about being here, about doing it, doing it again and doing it after the year we’ve had. We had some struggles, some pretty low times.”The match featured a moment of fair play so notable that the chair umpire announced it to the audience.With Ebden serving at 2-4 in the third set, he hit a forehand that barely skimmed Bopanna’s right elbow before landing in Ram and Salisbury’s court for an apparent winner. But Bopanna immediately signaled to the chair that it had hit him, meaning they would lose the point. No one else, including Ram, Salisbury and the chair umpire, noticed it, and Bopanna had to approach the umpire and notify her.When she explained it to the spectators, they applauded the gesture, and the score was corrected to 0-30. It did not end up factoring in the game because Ebden and Bopanna won the next four points and held serve. But Ram said it was unprecedented.“I haven’t seen anything like that in all the years I’ve been playing, and especially not in a Grand Slam final,” Ram said. “Nobody saw it. Nobody heard it. It would have been only him that would have known that happened if he didn’t say something.”After the match, in the locker room, Ram expressed his admiration directly to his gracious opponent.“I don’t have the words to say how much I appreciate something like that,” Ram said. More

    More stories

    • 75 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      Doubles Tennis Adds Variety to Wimbledon

      by

      Doubles takes a back seat to the singles game on both tours, but famous players like Coco Gauff revel in the variety, pace and joy of tennis’s hidden gem.WIMBLEDON, England — Coco Gauff toed the line to serve, eyes focused, shoulders back, ready to go. It was a moment of peril in her semifinal mixed doubles match here on Wednesday. Break point. One game all, third set.Gauff aimed a tight-spinning serve toward Matthew Ebden, her male opponent, and the point was on: a perfect display of what makes Gauff great at age 18, and what makes doubles an enduring favorite for Wimbledon fans.Her teammate, Jack Sock, soon entered the mix, handling a difficult volley. Then Gauff poleaxed a forehand at her female opponent, Samantha Stosur. From there, tennis beauty. Back-to-back moonshot lobs; spinners; touch; power; all of the geometry on Court No. 3 explored, and Gauff holding more than her own.The rally finally ended after 24 shots, as the crowd swayed and swooned and shouted to the cloud dappled sky and one of Sock’s spinning forehands finally coaxed a miss.As I watched from the stands, it felt like Gauff was underlining a message she told me the day before.“I love doubles,” she said. She smiled and paused for a moment. “It’s a different kind of game, all the reflexes, and unorthodox shots, the touchy-feely shots, the half volleys.”“It’s a joy to play,” she added.If your only exposure to tennis’s Grand Slam events is through television or even most media reports, you might think singles is all that matters. It breathes in nearly all of the oxygen. We know the big names, their strokes, their on-court proclivities, their off-court foibles. We celebrate the upstarts who always seem to march to new heights.But with the advent of more powerful rackets and strings, singles is now invariably a war of pounding groundstrokes, even here at Wimbledon, once the province of the serve and volley. Doubles remains tennis’s hidden gem, the last outpost of variety.Players like Gauff, famed for her singles play but already a doubles runner-up in two Grand Slams, find doubles a relief from tripwire pressure that comes with playing alone. And fans, once they get hooked, never seem to get enough of watching four professionals jam onto a court and produce set after set of novel angles and winners crafted with a pickpocket’s deft touch.There’s a paradox, though. Television shows doubles much less often and prominently. The prize money is lower for doubles than for singles (and even less for mixed doubles than for men’s and women’s doubles). I concede, reporters rarely write about it. So begins a feedback loop: Without more exposure, this unique part of professional tennis remains niche. So long as it is niche, it gets less attention.Unless it’s a final or a matchup featuring the biggest of names — Venus or Serena Williams —Grand Slam doubles remains relegated to the back courts.Rajeev Ram admitted that the doubles game tends to operate “in the shadows” of professional tennis. Ever heard of him? Unless you’re an ardent fan of tennis, probably not. The 38-year-old American is the world’s No. 2-ranked men’s doubles player, but can walk the grounds of Wimbledon without being noticed. Alongside his partner, Joe Salisbury, he made it to the men’s doubles semifinals here on Wednesday with a five-set win over Nicolas Mahut and Édouard Roger-Vasselin.Ram uses his pterodactyl wingspan and Sampras-ian serve to dominate matches and win over crowds. Once they watch doubles, Ram said, “the fans really take to it.”Rajeev Ram, right, said that the doubles game tends to operate “in the shadows” of professional tennis.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesOver the past few days, I spent a lot of time on the backcourts doing just that. I hung out with spectators and heard their observations. Many told stories of strolling the grounds, unsure what they’d find, only to happen upon a doubles star like Nikola Mektic, a Croatian doubles maestro whom I saw face down an 80 miles per hour tennis ball ripped at his gut only to send back a drop shot that fell to the grass like a marshmallow.“It’s sort of like a good dessert after the main dish,” one fan I spoke to said of the doubles draw. “The main dish is singles. I also like cake.”Other spectators raved to me that mixed doubles — an event typically only played at majors — offers what in elite sports remains a novelty: men and women competing side-by-side on the same field of play.Wimbledon spectators also seemed drawn to the joy that Gauff mentioned. During singles matches, players are usually tighter than tripwire. Doubles offers a relief that even a spectator can pick up on.“I’m not used to laughing much on the court,” Gauff said. She paused for a moment, smiled, then continued. “I do in doubles. I definitely think I loosen up and relax a bit more. So I’m going to try to use that all the time.”Gauff, who lost her third-round singles match to Amanda Anisimova, is one of the few famous players who gives doubles its due, reveling in a corner of tennis that allows her to hit new shots “in all sorts of different and unusual ways.”She hones her poise in singles and develops new shots and the flexibility to make them in doubles, taking the long view, believing the combination will round out her game to the point where she can finally lift a trophy at a Slam.After reaching her first Grand Slam singles finals at the French Open last month, Gauff was determined to keep playing both singles and doubles at majors (she also reached the women’s doubles finals at Roland Garros, playing alongside Jessica Pegula). There was a problem: She needed a new partner for Wimbledon. Gauff found one the new-fashioned way, starting her search on social media.“Who wants to play mixed at Wimby?” she posted to her Twitter account on June 15.The ask hardly went unnoticed by Gauff’s 250,000 followers. Dozens wanted in. Even Mikaela Shiffrin, the World Cup champion skier, sent an emoji saying she was up for it. Gauff noticed one reply in particular: “We’d be a decent team,” posted Sock, a four-time Grand Slam doubles winner.Gauff ended up taking a while to mull Sock’s offer. What if she played poorly and embarrassed herself with a male player of such prowess? “I almost said no to him,” she said. Finally, “I was like, ‘get out of your head, play with Jack!’”The early results proved it a wise decision. Gauff and Sock did not drop a set in their first three matches. Then came Wednesday’s semifinal against the veteran Australian pairing of Ebden and Stosur.She played with savvy, giving no quarter, serving and returning well, and hitting volleys with firm confidence as the third set marched on, pressure mounting. Two games apiece. Three games. Four.But with Gauff serving to go up, 6-5, it was Sock who dumped an easy volley into the net. Then another. Stosur and Ebden took advantage, breaking serve, edging ahead. They closed out the match quickly, 6-3, 5-7, 7-5.Gauff left the court with a determined look, comforted by a crowd that stood to loudly applaud, a thank you to both teams for a match of suspense and entertainment. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Tennis

      Australian Open Mixed Doubles Winners Are Crowned

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenOsaka Wins TitleMen’s Final PreviewDjokovic’s RideWilliams’s Future?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMixed Doubles, Often Neglected, Crowns Resilient ChampionsAfter a 14-day quarantine in their hotel rooms, Rajeev Ram and Barbora Krejcikova rolled through the draw and claimed victory at the Australian Open.Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and her partner, Rajeev Ram of the United States, each endured a 14-day quarantine when they arrived in Melbourne for the Australian Open.Credit…William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 20, 2021, 12:21 p.m. ETAfter they arrived in Melbourne, Rajeev Ram and Barbora Krejcikova received notice that passengers on their respective charter flights had tested positive for the coronavirus. The two were among the 72 players then forced to enter a 14-day “hard quarantine” in their hotel rooms, denied the opportunities to go outside and practice that were afforded other players.Roughly five weeks later, Ram and Krejcikova proved their resilience by winning the Australian Open mixed doubles title, beating the Australian team of Matthew Ebden and Samantha Stosur 6-1, 6-4 in the final on Saturday night.“I mean, even though we were in hard lockdown for 14 days and we didn’t have an opportunity to play, after that you just go out there and you do your best,” Krejcikova said. “It’s really amazing what we actually achieved just in these last couple of weeks.”Ram and Krejcikova and their playing partners also made the respective finals in men’s and women’s doubles; Krejcikova lost in the women’s doubles final on Friday with Katerina Siniakova, who was also in hard quarantine; Ram will play in the men’s final on Sunday with Joe Salisbury, who was not.Women’s singles runner-up Jennifer Brady also made her deep run at the Australian Open after 14 days in her hotel room.Mixed doubles in Australia has frequently brought out Krejcikova’s best tennis: She has won the title three years in a row — in 2019 with Ram and last year with Nikola Mektic.As they prepared to reunite on court, Ram and Krejcikova stayed in frequent touch during their isolations. Ram said that was a key to staying positive in the difficult circumstances.“I think we were all in a situation that wasn’t ideal, but the best you can do at that point was check in with your friend, check in with other people that are in the same situation,” he said. “It helps you get through it. For sure, it helped me get through it.”Mixed doubles has been a part of tennis since its origins in Victorian-era garden parties. It remains a popular format at the recreational level, but it has been increasingly scarce on the professional level since the pandemic began.The Australian Open mixed doubles competition was the first such sanctioned event staged since last year’s Australian Open. Even with increased talk of the men’s and women’s tours further collaborating, and after headline-generating moments like Serena Williams partnering with Andy Murray at Wimbledon and playing mixed doubles against Roger Federer in 2019, mixed doubles has been neglected.The Hopman Cup, the annual mixed-team event, was discontinued by Tennis Australia after the 2019 tournament and has yet to find a new home. Both the United States Open and French Open last year decided not to hold mixed doubles events during the pandemic, even though the event didn’t significantly increase the number of people on site compared with the other, larger draws.“It was unfortunate for sure that the other events didn’t have it; I was really excited that this one did,” Ram said. “Was I ever worried it was going to get cut? Maybe. I think when you have situations with governments and different things and capacities and all that, yeah, you are worried, probably.”“I tell you what, I wasn’t worried that the singles was going to get cut,” Ram added. “Definitely these are the first events to go, but I’m glad they were able to pull it off. I hope it continues. I think it’s one of the more fun events to watch, even, as a tennis fan.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More