![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/salisbury-skupski-us-open-2025.jpg\")
<\/p>\n ATP Tour
\n Salisbury & Skupski: ‘A bit of revenge is hopefully around the corner’<\/p>\n
Britons face Granollers\/Zeballos for US Open title<\/p>\n
September 05, 2025<\/p>\n
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Matthew Stockman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski are competing together as a full-time team for the first time this season.
\n By Andrew Eichenholz<\/p>\n
Earlier this year Joe Salisbury<\/a> and Neal Skupski<\/a> came close to winning their first major title as a team. In the Roland Garros<\/a> final against Marcel Granollers<\/a> and Horacio Zeballos<\/a>, the Britons rallied from a first-set bagel to push deep into a deciding set against the longtime partners, only to fall just short of Paris glory. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were very close. It was a bit of a strange match. We got killed in the first set. Could have easily run away from us. I think we managed to stick in in the second set and turn it around,\u201d Salisbury said. \u201cIt was a very, very tight third set as well. And I think we came off the court, it was obviously gutting to lose the final, but we were proud of how we fought and I think we did everything we could, sometimes it just doesn\u2019t go your way.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, Salisbury and Skupski, who are competing this season as a full-time team for the first time, have a chance at revenge. The sixth seeds will take on Granollers and Zeballos once more for the trophy at the season\u2019s final major.<\/p>\n \u201c[The] past few months we\u2019ve had a great run, we\u2019ve had a lot of good results, but we\u2019ve yet to get over the line and get a title this year, so obviously that\u2019s an extra motivation,\u201d Salisbury said. \u201cWhatever happens on Saturday, it has still been a very good tournament for us. But we really want to get over that line and get that title, get that Grand Slam together.\u201d<\/p>\n The Britons have been a model of consistency in recent months, reaching the final in Toronto as well as semi-finals in Cincinnati, Washington, Eastbourne and Winston-Salem in addition to a quarter-final appearance at Wimbledon<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is only one year ago that Salisbury and Skupski agreed to their partnership to begin with. Immediately after the US Open<\/a>, they agreed over text to team up for 2025 and then notified their partners immediately to allow those players an opportunity to find a new partner for the season ahead.<\/p>\n It was a long time coming for Salisbury and Skupski, who have flown the flag for British doubles for years. They did not know one another when they were younger because 35-year-old Skupski is a couple years older than 33-year-old Salisbury. The college products \u2014 Salisbury went to the University of Memphis and Skupski attended Louisiana State University \u2014 first got to know one another more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n In 2013, Skupski watched Salisbury play Albano Olivetti<\/a> in an ITF World Tennis Tour event held in Great Britain.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember watching Joe play there and I thought he was pretty good. He was a little bit different, I\u2019m pretty sure he was serve-volleying and stuff like that on the grass,\u201d Skupski said. \u201cBut never really thought, \u2018Oh, in the future we\u2019ll play doubles together\u2019, because I was with [brother] Ken [Skupski] at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Salisbury added: \u201cI remember we played against each other quite a few times on the Challenger Tour when Neal was playing with Ken and I was playing with my now coach David O\u2019Hare. <\/p>\n \u201cWe played quite a few matches against each other, so I feel like we got to know each other when we were playing Challengers.\u201d<\/p>\n For a time, Salisbury worked with coach Tom Corrie, who spoke to Skupski. \u201cTom was like, \u2018Ah, you should play with Joe in the future\u2019,\u201d Skupski recalled. \u201cI was like, \u2018Ah, okay, yeah, yeah\u2019. And then obviously I probably should have played with Joe a little bit sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n They turned into frequent opponents. Salisbury enjoyed extended success with American Rajeev Ram<\/a>, winning three consecutive US Open<\/a> titles from 2021-2023. In the 2022 final, Ram and Salisbury defeated Skupski and Wesley Koolhof<\/a> in the final.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite a difficult match when we played against each other a few years ago. Obviously Joe won, so he probably felt like he played well, but I didn\u2019t feel like we both showed our full potential,\u201d Skupski said. \u201cBut now we\u2019re on the same time together, we\u2019ve got no Brits on the other side. We can really go after whoever we play against.\u201d<\/p>\n Salisbury explained that him and Skupski had wanted to play together for a long time, but the timing never worked. He had been succeeding with Ram, or Skupski was playing well with his partner. <\/p>\n \u201cBut I think we knew that it was something we wanted to do at some point,\u201d Salisbury said. \u201cIt was just waiting for the timing to be right.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"It](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757137809_767_it-all-adds-up-banner.jpg\"\/)
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