Ram-Salisbury pair wins men's doubles crown
NEW YORK: Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury clinched a third successive US Open men's doubles crown on Friday, stopping India's Rohan Bopanna and Aussie Matthew Ebden 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 at the Arthur Ashe stadium.
Bopanna, who became the oldest Grand Slam doubles finalist in the Open Era at 43 years and 6 months, won hearts - even though his own might've been a little broken - when he reversed a call at 0-15 on Ebden's serve (seventh game, third set), conceding that the ball had brushed him. No one had noticed.
Bopanna-Ebden, playing their first Grand Slam final as a team, were quickly out of the blocks. They broke the American in the opening game of the match and had chances on the Briton's serve in the third game. They nailed the opportunity in the seventh game and backed it up by closing the opening set in 30 minutes.
Salisbury and Ram refused to be pegged back. They broke in the sixth game of the second set to take the match into the decider. The Indo-Aussie pairing, who had their share of crowd support, dug themselves out of a hole in the opening game of the third set, where they came back from love-40 to hold.
Salisbury-Ram saved three breakpoints in the third game of a pulsating third set and then struck in the fifth game when a Bopanna forehand went wide. That's all the third seeds needed.
