After Rajeev Ram won the US Open Doubles title with Joe Salisbury for the first time in 2021, he was home training at his high school with old coach Bryan Smith.
“He said,” Okay, we will have to think of a number of goals to ensure that we are motivated and stay on the right track, “Ram recalled atptour.com. “We just wrote down a few things in the short term and then a few things at the end of the career that I would like to hit towards the end of my career.”
One of those long -term goals was the achievement of 500 victories at tour level. On Sunday the American reached that milestone when he worked Nikola Mektic in the third round of the US Open. The memorandum stays on his phone today.
“Tennis players, we tend to look so much ahead and sometimes you forget things and you don’t take the time to remember or appreciate them and enjoy it. And so it’s actually pretty nice,” Ram said. “This competition happened yesterday, I have a day off today. I can think about it, I can appreciate it, and then it will be back to work tomorrow.”
It was appropriate that Ram reached the milestone at Flushing Meadows, where he won three consecutive titles with Salisbury from 2021-23.
‘[It is great that it happened] Really in the US, but especially at this tournament, “said Ram.” It is the American open. It is where Americans play at the end of the day – to play well here at the US Open and I have had my best results at this event, so it’s pretty tidy to make it happen here. ”
Ram became the seventh active man who reached 500 double -extraction at tour level and he is the only active American with so many victories. This is open outside the back of an ATP Masters 1000 Triumph with Mektic on the Cincinnati.
“To really feel that I was there at a big event, [it was a] Super meaningful title to have, “Ram said.” There is another mental space or another competitive space that I have as if I have to try to try to be successful at that level and I could do that. That was really nice for me. ”
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The US Open is only the fifth tournament that Ram and Mektic played together in their career. The collaboration came together during the grass court season, when Mektic was looking for a partner for the North American summer.
“We made jokes in Cincy that we took so many titles from each other during the course of our career that it was fun to really win one,” Ram said, cracking a smile.
The 11th seeds are now open in the round of 16 at the US, but they do not look too far ahead. Ram has emerged here victoriously to know that there is still a lot of tournament left.
“No matter how cliché it is, it’s just one game at the same time. Nikola and I play well. We can get along well, but we don’t have the history that Joe and I have been doing for a while,” said Ram. “So I think it’s super important for us to stay on course and really take it with match through match – frankly, point by point.”
The 41-year-old concentrated for a large part of his career on Singles, won two ATP Tour titles and reached No. 56 in the PIF ATP ranking. But he is proud that less than a decade after his focus will be completely shifted to double, the former number 1 in the PIF ATP Doubles Rankings has checked an important milestone.
“It was just the fact that I arrived there, I think, that was pretty cool,” Ram said. “It was great for me to feel that and to feel that I wrote something and achieved it.”
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