Former British number one Laura Robson, now working for Sky Sports, mentioned to Salisbury, 33, and Skupski, 35, in a post-match interview that the pair were splitting.<\/p>\n
Neither denied it. The move would mean ending an alliance that lasted for just one season, in which they were runners-up at the French Open and US Open.<\/p>\n
Asked if that factor would provide fuel for the final, when they will face opponents they beat in the round-robin stage on Wednesday, Skupski said: “It’s just another match.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a long season. It’s going to be a tough match against them boys.<\/p>\n
“We’re really looking forward to it. We’re going to have to bring as much energy as possible, even though it’s the last tournament of the year.<\/p>\n
“We’ll go out there, give it out best shot and see what happens.”<\/p>\n
Cash and Glasspool, the world’s top-ranked doubles team, saved the only break point either team had in the opening set.<\/p>\n
An early break in the second set allowed Salisbury and Skupski to haul themselves level and force a match tie-break, in which the crucial moment came when Glasspool netted an overhead to give up a mini-break.<\/p>\n
Two match points were saved from 9-6 behind by the top seeds, but Skupski landed a strong first serve on the next opportunity and watched happily as the return landed wide.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Patten and Heliovaara beat the all-Italian pair of Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori 6-4 6-3 in the first semi-final.<\/p>\n
Victory continued a successful year for the former Wimbledon champions, who won the Australian Open in January for their second Grand Slam title together and have added titles in Beijing and Paris.<\/p>\n
Patten has already made this a memorable trip to Turin, becoming engaged to girlfriend Ellie last Sunday.<\/p>\n
Both teams of finalists have secured substantial winnings already this week, with unbeaten Skupski and Salisbury set to share a total pot of about \u00a3730,000 should they lift the trophy.<\/p>\n
Patten and Heliovaara – having lost once in the round-robin stage – would collect about \u00a3660,000 if they take the title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former British number one Laura Robson, now working for Sky Sports, mentioned to Salisbury, 33, and Skupski, 35,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-285939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}