Defending Champs Ram/Salisbury Face Tricky Australian Open Doubles Draw
Defending champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury will face a stacked draw packed with top singles champions and dangerous duos as they eye a second Grand Slam crown at the 2021 Australian Open doubles tournament.
Stefanos Tsitsipas, Denis Shapovalov and Nick Kyrgios are some of the standout singles names that lurk in the doubles draw. Tsitsipas, No. 6 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, is set to hit the court in Melbourne as a wild card partnering with younger brother Petros Tsitsipas. Shapovalov will join forces with fellow Canadian Vasek Pospisil, while home hope Kyrgios will form an all-Aussie wild card duo with Thanasi Kokkinakis.
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Felix Auger-Aliassime and Hubert Hurkacz will team up for the first time since their breakout victory at the Rolex Paris Masters last year, a statement triumph in just their second tournament together. They’ll need to find that level as they seek to upset No. 16 seeds Ken Skupski and Neal Skupski in the first round.
Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah are the top seeds as they begin their hunt for a third Grand Slam title. The Colombian pair lifted the Wimbledon and US Open trophies in 2019 to finish that season as Year-End No.1s.Defending champions Ram and Salisbury are seeded fifth.
Second seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic are coming into the year’s first Grand Slam on a hot streak. Mektic and Pavic are on an eight-match winning streak after claiming their second title of the year at the Murray River Open, backing up their season-opening win at the Antalya Open.
No. 6 seeded Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares got off to a fast start in their partnership’s second chapter after winning the Great Ocean Road Open. The Australian Open 2016 champions have won two Grand Slam doubles titles together, and have paired up again after parting ways in 2019.