London; There’s more to American men’s doubles than one family from California. One of the lessons from this season is that you don’t have to be called Bryan, or come from a tennis family, or be playing alongside your identical twin brother, to prosper on the ATP World Tour.
Born in Colorado to parents who are both scientists, Rajeev Ram is in a doubles partnership with South African Raven Klaasen (and they’re not blood relations, not even distant cousins), and yet they have put themselves into the elite by qualifying for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals for the first time. What’s been fascinating is that, on a number of occasions this season, Ram and his partner have excelled when the tennis public had imagined – probably even expected – Bob and Mike Bryan to put on a show.
To explain, some of Ram and Klaasen’s finest wins this season came when they had the Bryans on the other side of the net – beating the Californian brothers took them into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open, while another propelled them into the final of the pre-Wimbledon tournament in Halle, and one more took them into the semi-finals at the All England Club.
Far from being intimidated by having to play against the most accomplished pairing in men’s doubles history, Ram and Klaasen plainly appreciate the opportunity to show off their own skills.
The Rio de Janeiro Olympics was another example of when the sport had expected much from the Bryans, and instead it was Ram who took centre stage. When the Bryans withdrew from the Games, Ram willingly travelled to Brazil as a late call-up, where he and Venus Williams won a silver medal in the mixed doubles competition. Just a few weeks later, Ram featured in another high-profile mixed doubles final – at the US Open – this time in the company of Coco Vandeweghe, though again he was the runner-up.
As if Ram wasn’t busy enough already, he continues to pursue a parallel career in singles. While Ram is in his thirties, this season saw him achieve his highest ever singles placing in the Emirates ATP Rankings, with that peak of No. 56 coming after he made the final of the hard-court tournament in Delray Beach (both of his singles titles on the ATP World Tour, which he won in 2009 and 2015, came at the grass-court event in Newport).
But it’s his alliance with Klaasen, who lives in Cape Town, which has kept him busiest of all. In addition to scoring a grass-court title in Halle and a hard-court prize in Chengdu, they also appeared in a number of finals this season. The most significant of all their runner-up finishes was their run at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event on the Miami cement. And now, here in Greenwich, there’s one another chance in 2016 for Ram and Klaasen to demonstrate their class.
Today (Friday) Klaasen and Ram opening the evening session at the ATP Finals in their last round robin group match against Spaniards Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez. It’s a must win match as the victors will qualify for Saturday’s semi final as both teams have won and lost a match going into tonight’s clash.