Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury beat Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski 7-6 (9-7) 6-4 after 1 hour and 39 minutes to advance to the final in the doubles tournament at the Nitto ATP Finals at the Pala Alpitour in Turin.
The US and British team earned their 38th tour-level win of the season.
Ram and Salisbury earned an early break in the second game to open up a 3-0 lead. Koolhof and Skupski broke back in the fifth game to draw level to 3-3. Ram and Salisbury saved two set points at 4-5 on serve. The first set went to a tie-break. Koolhof and Skupski saved five set points in the tie-break, including four from 2-6. Ram and Salisbury closed out the first set on their seventh set point.
Ram and Salisbury broke serve in the first game of the second set and held their next service games to seal the win on their first match point.
They have extended their lead to 3-1 in their four head-to-head matches against Koolhof and Skupski.
“We are very happy to be through. I feel we are pretty good at handling whatever any situation we are in. It was tough not closing it out more straightforward in the first set tie-break, but we fought hard and got it done eventually. We then stayed focused and played pretty smart and held onto our serve well. We are pretty happy with the performance”, said Salisbury.
Ram and Salisbury lost to Pierre Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in the championships match at last year’s edition of the Nitto ATP Finals. Koolhof and Skupski were honoured as the 2022 year-end ATP Double number 1 team after a season highlighted by three Masters 1000 titles in Madrid, Montreal and Paris Bercy and four ATP 250 tournaments in Melbourne, Doha and s’Hertogenbosch.
