Rajeev Ram joins 500-wins club: 'I wrote something down & achieved it'

ATP Tour

Rajeev Ram joins 500-wins club: 'I wrote something down & achieved it'

ATPTour.com speaks to Ram about reaching the milestone

Dylan Buell/Getty Images Rajeev Ram is the only active American man with 500 tour-level doubles wins. By Andrew Eichenholz

After Rajeev Ram won the US Open men’s doubles title for the first time in 2021 with Joe Salisbury, he was home training at his high school with longtime coach Bryan Smith.

“He was like, ‘Alright, we're going to have to come up with some goals for you to make sure we're motivated and stay on track’,” Ram recalled to ATPTour.com. “We just wrote down a few things short term and then a couple end-of-career things that I would want to hit by the end of my career.”

One of those longterm goals was reaching 500 tour-level wins. On Sunday, the American reached that milestone when he partnered Nikola Mektic into the third round of the US Open. The note remains on his phone today.

“Tennis players, we tend to look ahead so much and sometimes you forget about things and don't take the time to remember or appreciate them and enjoy them. And so it's actually kind of nice,” Ram said. “This match happened yesterday, I have a day off today. I can think about it, I can appreciate it, and then it's back to work again tomorrow.”

It was fitting that Ram reached the milestone at Flushing Meadows, where he won three consecutive titles with Salisbury from 2021-23.

“[It is great that it happened] really anywhere in the U.S., but especially at this tournament,” Ram said. “It's the US Open. It's what Americans play for at the end of the day — to play well here at the US Open and I've had my best results at this event, so it's pretty neat to have it happen here.”

Ram became the seventh active man to reach 500 tour-level doubles wins and he is the only active American with that many victories. This is off the back of an ATP Masters 1000 triumph with Mektic at the Cincinnati Open.

“To really feel like I was in there there at a big event, [it was a] super meaningful title to have,” Ram said. “There's a different mental space or a different competitive space that I feel like I need to get into to try and be successful at that level and I was able to do that. That was really enjoyable for me.”

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The US Open is just the fifth tournament Ram and Mektic have played together in their careers. The partnership came together during the grass-court season, when Mektic was looking for a partner for the North American summer.

“We joked in Cincy that we took so many titles away from each other through the course of our career, that it was nice to actually win one together,” Ram said, cracking a laugh.

The 11th seeds are now in the Round of 16 at the US Open, but they are not looking too far ahead. Ram has emerged victorious enough here to know that there is a lot of tournament remaining.

“As cliche as it is, it is just one match at a time. Nikola and I are playing well. We are getting along well, but we also don't have the history that maybe Joe and I did for some time,” Ram said. “So I think it's super important for us to stay on track and to really take it match by match — honestly, point by point.”

The 41-year-old focused on singles for much of his career, winning two ATP Tour titles and reaching No. 56 in the PIF ATP Rankings. But he is proud that less than a decade after fully shifting his focus to doubles, the former No. 1 in the PIF ATP Doubles Rankings has checked off a major milestone.

“It was just the fact that I got there, I think, that was pretty cool,” Ram said. “It was great for me to feel that and to feel like I wrote something down and achieved it.”

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