Rajeev Ram is a name that has been doing the rounds in men’s tennis for well over a decade but it is only in recent years that it has started being associated with Grand Slam titles. The Indian-American won his first Grand Slam title in the form of a mixed doubles crown at the 2019 Australian Open at the age of 34. In the years since, he has added five more Grand Slam titles, one in mixed doubles and four in men’s doubles with UK’s Joe Salisbury.
Growing up in Carmel, Indiana, Ram was born to Dr. Raghav and Sushma Ram. He grew up playing at the local Carmel Racquet Club. The club decided to name a court after him in 2021 and Ram asked for it to be named Ram Family Championship Court as a tribute to his parents, with his father having died in 2019 at the age of 68. “My dad took tennis up more regularly because I loved it,” Ram is quoted as saying by the local media at the time. “We did it together. It was much more of a family interest. I wouldn’t have done anything without my mom and dad. We spent a lot of time at that club as a family.”
Ram on a total of nine national junior titles in singles and doubles. He also played high school tennis at Carmel, earned All-State honors, became the state singles champion. He was the runner-up in juniors doubles at the 2002 Wimbledon, partnered with Brian Baker. Ram turned pro in 2004.
Ram had retired from singles tennis in 2017. In his singles career, he had achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 56 in April 2016. In 2009 he won his first ATP singles title at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in 2009. He had progressed a lucky loser, thus making him one of the few to win a title despite going through this route. Ram would win just one more singles title in his career which was also at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in 2015. The next year, he took part at the 2016 Olympics and went on to win the mixed doubles silver, partnering up with Venus Williams.
Less than a month later, he progressed to a Grand Slam final in mixed doubles for the first time, partnering with CoCo Vandeweghe at the US Open. They lost in straight sets to Mate Pavic and Laura Siegemund.
Retirement from singles and Grand Slam titles
In July 2017, Ram announced his retirement from singles tennis. “I had a great year last year in singles even and in doubles. But I could just feel the wear and tear starting to take its toll,” he had said after playing his final match in Newport. Interestingly, he had lost his last singles match to Matthew Ebden, who had partnered up with Rohan Bopanna and lost to Ram and Salisbury in the US Open 2023 final.
It was after this that he found Grand Slam success in doubles. He won the 2019 Australian Open mixed doubles title with Barbora Krejcíková and won the Major again with her in 2021. In 2020, he and Salisbury won their first Major title at the Australian open and they also reached the final the next year. While they lost to Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek, they won their first US Open title that year, beating Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares in the final. With that, the pair reached No.4 in the world doubles ranking. They succesfully defended that title the next year and that also helped them rise to the top of the rankings. Ram became the oldest first-time World No. 1 in the doubles rankings and the 18th American to climb to the top of the tree.
Ram and Salisbury came into the 2023 US Open after a rather slim run throughout the year. However, they maintained their grip on the major by beating Bopanna and Ebden 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the final. This made them the first team in the Open Era (since 1968) to win three straight doubles titles at the hard-court major.
