Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury are back in the US Open men’s doubles semi-finals after beating Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos 6-4, 6-4. The result sent the pair through to Thursday’s last-four match against Kevin Krawietz and Tim Putz, keeping their bid for another title alive at Flushing Meadows.
The win mattered because Granollers and Zeballos arrived as last year’s champions and the second seeds, while Ram and Salisbury came in as a reunited pair after splitting in 2024. That makes the latest victory more than just another straight-sets result: it knocks out the holders and leaves the three-time US Open champions one match from a final.
Ram and Salisbury know this stage well. They won the US Open men’s doubles title in 2021, 2022 and 2023, and also won the Australian Open, so this run is not a surprise so much as a reminder of how durable they have been as a team. What changed this year is that they returned to each other after a season apart, and the reunion has already carried them past the pair that beat everyone else a year ago.
That is what gives Thursday’s match its edge. Krawietz and Putz were the 2024 runners-up, so the semi-final now brings together two teams that already know how far they can go at this level. The path is simple from here: win again and Ram and Salisbury go back into a US Open final; lose, and the comeback ends one round short.
