Nearly two weeks had passed since Rajeev Ram had again come painfully close to an Olympic gold medal.
“It’s still hard,” he said in an interview this month. “Even many days after now, it’s still hard. I knew what a big opportunity this was.”
In Ram’s Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, he settled for silver in mixed doubles with Venus Williams. Eight years later in Paris, it was silver again, this time in men’s doubles.
Ram and fellow American Austin Krajicek did get their scrapbook moment by eliminating the Spanish superstars Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz in a quarterfinal in front of a center-court crowd at Roland Garros that was hardly in Team U.S.A.’s corner.
“Even if they’re not cheering for me, I’ll take that atmosphere any day of the week,” Ram said.
But Ram and Krajicek could not hold a second-set lead in the final and lost the gold in a match tiebreaker to Matt Ebden and John Peers of Australia by the crepe-thin margin of 10-8.
That hurt all the more because Ram is 40 years old and will very likely not play in the Olympics again.
“Did I want it too much? Yeah, maybe,” he said.
But Ram, who reached his tennis peak later than most, still has two Olympic medals, and he is now back in a high-profile event where the bounces and big points have gone his way. He and his partner Joe Salisbury are riding an 18-match winning streak at the U.S. Open and are the first doubles team in over a century to win three consecutive men’s titles at the event.
They won the first in 2021 after saving four match points in the quarterfinals against Ebden and Max Purcell.
“One of those match points was on their serve, and we probably should have been out of there,” Ram said. “Instead, we started this run of three U.S. Opens in a row. So, it goes both ways. You remember those ones that sting. But I’ve also been on the other side of it.”
Ram, a smooth ball striker with a potent serve and forehand, and Salisbury, a quick and often-acrobatic Briton who is eight years younger, are a complementary pair.
“We’ll start with the athleticism,” Ram said. “I don’t have it, and he has it in heaps, so that helps. He’s one of the best athletes I’ve ever seen on a tennis court. I feel one of my biggest strengths is my mental clarity and whatnot, and I think that has helped along with my experience.”
Ram and Salisbury have struggled by their high standards this season, failing to win a title since the Adelaide International in Australia in January, but they were also having an inconsistent season last year before they found their groove and won the Open.
Ram said he believed communication skills were even more important to elite doubles success than shotmaking skills.
“The toughest thing that I had to learn and get better at when I played only doubles was to become a great teammate,” he said. “All of a sudden, I’m basing my whole career, my livelihood, not only on me, but the guy next to me, right? One of my biggest jobs in doubles is to make sure I create an environment on my side of the net where my partner can thrive.”
With Salisbury, Ram forced himself to become more demonstrative on court to lift his self-contained partner. “If he’s willing to do that, of course he’s willing to tweak a grip on a return or try a different volley tactic,” said Eric Butorac, an executive with the United States Tennis Association, who partnered with Ram to his first ATP doubles title in 2009. “If you’re willing to step outside what your natural demeanor is on the court, it shows you are willing to do whatever it takes.”
Ram took an unconventional path to tennis success, receiving little formal instruction in his earliest years as he played with his father, Raghav, a scientist and recreational player.
Ram fell in love with tennis in the 1990s, a decade awash in great American players, and his role model was the longtime No. 1 Pete Sampras. Ram’s serve, rocking back on his left heel, is an informal Sampras tribute.
“I have a cabinet full of old VHS tapes, for those older people who are probably going to read this, and Pete matches were the bulk of the collection,” Ram said.
Ram said he beat his father for the first time at 11, and he went on to become one of the best juniors in the country. He played college tennis for a season at the University of Illinois, helping his undefeated team win the 2003 N.C.A.A. championship. He turned pro in 2004 and peaked at No. 56 in the singles rankings in 2016. He became a doubles specialist the next season and has played with more than 100 different partners at all levels of his pro career.
He won his first Grand Slam title in mixed doubles with Barbora Krejcikova at the 2019 Australian Open when his father was seriously ill with pancreatic cancer. He died later that year.
“I know for a fact I wouldn’t be here doing this if it wasn’t for him, and the effort that he put in,” Ram said. “We love tennis. We love the history of it, and for him to actually see me hold a major trophy and for me to be able to bring it home to have him hold it was pretty awesome.”
Ram has won six major doubles titles and reached No. 1 in 2022. He attributes his career longevity to learning how to care for his body (he has not had surgery because of an injury) and to the support of his wife, Zainab Saqib, who works remotely and can often travel with him. But above all, Ram attributes it to how he was introduced to the game
“My father and my mother made sure that tennis was always my choice, no matter what,” he said. “The minute I didn’t enjoy it anymore was the time I should stop.”
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