Joe Salisbury falls short with partner Rajeev Ram in Australian Open men’s doubles title defence

England’s Joe Salisbury and America’s Rajeev Ram have fallen short in their Australian Open men’s doubles title defence, losing 6-3 6-4 to Croatia’s Ivan Dodig and Slovakia’s Filip Polasek in the final at Melbourne Park.

Little separated the two pairs early, with both sides cruising through their first three service games.

But after Dodig and Polasek cruised through another service game to take a 4-3 lead, the ninth seeds finally managed to break Salisbury’s serve before running away with the final game to claim the first set.

The second set followed an identical pattern, with both teams holding serve until Salisbury was broken again to hand Dodig and Polasek a 4-3 lead.

The fifth seeds rallied to draw even at 4-4 but another service break ultimately gave Dodig and Polasek enough momentum to seal the straight sets victory.

‘Since we started to play one and a half years ago, we are really enjoying and playing good tennis,’ Dodig said during the trophy ceremony.

‘We are having a lot of fun and hopefully it is going to continue.’

‘Filip, I know it’s your first Grand Slam,’ Ram said. ‘That was way too good. Not sure what we could have done any different, so you guys played awesome.’

Just got to say big congratulations to Ivan and Filip,’ said Salisbury.

‘That was way too good today. Gotta be one of the best performances in a final ever.’