Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek claimed their first Grand Slam title with a 6-3 6-4 win over Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in the Australian Open doubles final on Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne Park.
Dodig and Polasek were playing their sixth Grand Slam championship as a team. They lifted two trophies at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati and at the China Open in Beijing.
Polasek came out retirement after being sidelined for five years due to a back injury. His partner Karin gave birth to their second daughter Olivia in Bratislava.
Dodig and Polasek did not convert six break points in the sixth game of the first set, but they earned the first break in the eighth game before serving out the first set in the ninth game.
Dodig and Polasek got the break in the seventh game with a forehand winner. Ram fended off one championship point on serve at 3-5 30-40, but Polasek sealed the win on the third match point in the 10th game. Dodig and Polasek did not face any break point in the entire match.
“Usually, I am the one who who is more up and down. Ivan is always the consistent member of the team. He gets me through the moments when I am not hitting great, but today i picked it up my returns from the beginning. I was just trying to keep going as long as possible”, said Polasek.
Dodig, who was a former world number 29 player in singles, won the 2015 Roland Garros doubles title with Marcelo Melo from Brazil. Polasek won the first Grand Slam doubles title of his career.
Ram won his second Australian Open mixed doubles title in three years with Barbora Krejikova, after their 6-1 6-4 win over Matthew Ebden and Samantha Stosur.
“Since we started to play one-and-a-half years ago, we are really enjoying and playing good tennis. We are having a lot of fun and hopefully it is going to continue”, said Dodig.
Dodig and Polasek beat Ram and Salisbury 6-3 6-7 (5-7) 10-7 in their first match at the 2019 Paris Rolex Masters. Ram and Salisbury avenged this defeat by beating the Croatian and Slovakian team 3-6 6-3 10-6 in the round robin of the 2019 Nitto ATP Finals in London.
“We tried to change things We started serving a bit more into Polasek’s body, trying to change up the pace a bit and where we were moving at the net. At the end of the day, we just needed to serve better. I don’t think either of us were serving our best”, said Salisbury.
