Joe Salisbury’s last act as a professional was a 6-3, 6-4 defeat by Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz in the US Open semi-finals — the same tournament he had won three years in a row, alongside the same partner he had won it with. Eleven days later, on Wednesday 16 September, the 34-year-old from Putney posted on Instagram that he was done. “I’ve decided I’m retiring from professional tennis,” he wrote. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while and am now very happy with the decision.” He leaves with six Grand Slam titles, 17 tour-level trophies, 286 match wins and a place at the top of a ranking list no British man had occupied for six years.
From Memphis to the top of the rankings
Salisbury turned professional in 2011 and spent the better part of a decade in the sport’s lower tiers, having come through the American college system at the University of Memphis. He was 27 before he won a Grand Slam title, partnering Rajeev Ram to the 2020 Australian Open crown in the pair’s first season together.
What followed was one of the most productive runs any British player has had in the professional era. At the 2021 US Open he went 11-0 across two draws, winning the men’s doubles with Ram and the mixed with Desirae Krawczyk — the first player to complete that double in New York since Bob Bryan in 2010. Krawczyk and Salisbury had already taken the Roland Garros mixed title earlier that summer, giving him two majors in a single season from a discipline he barely played.
On 4 April 2022, Salisbury became the world’s top-ranked doubles player — six years to the day after Jamie Murray became the first Briton to do it. “Whenever my career ends, I will always be a former world No. 1, and that’s pretty cool,” he said at the time. His full honours list reads:
- Four men’s doubles majors: Australian Open 2020, US Open 2021, 2022 and 2023
- Two mixed doubles majors: Roland Garros 2021 and US Open 2021, both with Desirae Krawczyk
- Back-to-back Nitto ATP Finals titles with Ram in 2022 and 2023
- Three ATP Masters 1000 titles, all with Ram
- Seven Davis Cup ties for Great Britain, plus Olympic appearances in Tokyo and Paris
The partnership that defined him
Fourteen of Salisbury’s 17 titles came with Ram, and the numbers explain why the retirements arrived a week apart. The American called time on his own career immediately after that semi-final in New York, honoured on court in a ceremony that doubled as a farewell to a partnership tennis had not really finished processing.
Britons and Americans pairing up is not unusual; sustaining it at the top for five years is. Salisbury and Ram won three consecutive US Opens between 2021 and 2023, a run no men’s doubles team had managed at Flushing Meadows since the Bryan brothers. They split after 2024 and reunited this season, and the reunion nearly produced a fourth New York title — they beat the defending champions in the quarter-finals before running into Krawietz and Pütz.
Salisbury was never the louder half of that team. His game was built on returning position, a heavy left-handed serve into the body and an unfashionable willingness to grind out deciding tie-breaks. Louis Cayer, the coach who shaped much of British doubles for two decades, put it plainly in his tribute: “You became an outstanding athlete and competitor while always remaining humble, thoughtful and respectful of those around you.”
What British tennis loses, and what it already has
LTA chief executive Scott Lloyd described Salisbury as finishing “as one of the most successful doubles players of his generation” — and in purely British terms, the most successful men’s doubles player of the Open era by major count.
The timing, though, is kinder than it looks. Britain has rarely been deeper in doubles: Henry Patten won Wimbledon in 2024 with Harri Heliövaara, Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool took the title in 2025, and Neal Skupski remains a fixture in the world’s top 20. Patten reached the same US Open semi-finals Salisbury did this month. The succession is already handled.
What is harder to replace is the template. Salisbury was proof that a player who never cracked the singles top 200 could build a decade-long career, top a world ranking and win six majors by specialising early and committing completely. British juniors who once treated doubles as a fallback now have a finished career to point at. “I gave it my all,” Salisbury wrote, “and know I can be proud and look back with no regrets.” The record backs him up.
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Fact-checked against: [ATP Tour](https://www.atptour.com/en/news/joe-salisbury-retirement-news-2026), [LTA](https://www.lta.org.uk/news/2026/september/joe-salisbury-britains-most-successful-mens-doubles-player-announces-retirement/), [Tennis Now](https://tennisnow.com/former-doubles-no-1-joe-salisbury-retires/), [ATP No. 1 tribute](https://www.atptour.com/en/news/salisbury-world-no-1-tribute-2022). Article body is 763 words.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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