Australian Open 2021 - Britain's Joe Salisbury knocks out Jamie Murray to reach men's doubles final

ByEurosport

Published 19/02/2021 at 09:50 GMT

Britain’s Joe Salisbury and his American partner Rajeev Ram will be looking to win their second successive Australian Open men's doubles title on Saturday following a victory over Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares. It was not all good news for the 28-year-old Brit, though, as he was knocked out of the mixed doubles in the semi-finals just hours later.

Highlights: Britain's Salisbury and partner Ram beat Murray and Soares in doubles

Britain’s Joe Salisbury and his American partner Rajeev Ram are into the men’s doubles final of the Australian Open for the second year in a row.

The defending champions beat 2016 men's doubles winners Jamie Murray and Brazil’s Bruno Soares 6-4, 7-6(2) and will play Croatian Ivan Dodig and Slovakia's Filip Polasek in the final on Sunday.

The straight sets win for Salisbury and Ram, in which they won 81 per cent of their first-serve points compared to Murray/Soares’ 64 per cent, puts an end to the latter pair’s eight-match winning streak.

ATP Madrid

Jamie Murray falls in Madrid, Norrie loses Estoril final

03/05/2021 at 10:57

"I think it just took us a little bit of time to get into the match. The conditions were a bit different today. Obviously very hot, the court is pretty lively," Salisbury said post-match.

"We just improved throughout the match. I think we struggled a little bit on return games in the first set, but we were serving well, so we knew if we stuck in there and played a good tie-break. We just got through it and then we played better in the second set."

Later in the day Salisbury went out of the mixed doubles semi-final with his partner Desirae Krawczyk, losing to Australian wildcards Sam Stosur and Matt Ebden 7-5, 5-7, 10-8.

Stosur and Ebden will face Ram and his partner Barbora Krejcikova in the final.

Belgium’s Elise Mertens and Aryna Sabalenka, who went out to Serena Williams in the fourth round of the singles, won their second Grand Slam women’s doubles title with a dominant 6-2, 6-3 win over Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova.

The pair wasted three championship points before Sabalenka set up a fourth with an ace and they wrapped up the match when Siniakova sent a backhand wide.

However, they will not be teaming up at Grand Slam events for the rest of 2021 as Sabalenka wants to focus on singles.

"I'm just trying to put my whole focus on singles," Sabalenka told reporters, adding that the pair will be playing WTA events in Dubai and Miami next.

"I know that doubles, it's not that hard, you're not moving that much than on singles.

"It still takes a lot of energy. I just want to save it for singles," added Sabalenka, who is ranked No.7 in the world in singles.