Salisbury makes history with French Open mixed doubles title
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Joe Salisbury became the first Brit to win a French Open title in 39 years after he and Desirae Krawczyk defeated Elena Vesnina and Aslan Karatsev 2-6, 6-4, 10-5 in the mixed doubles final.
Salisbury – winning his second career Grand Slam title – and his partner Krawczyk staged a brilliant comeback from a set down, dominating the match tie-break to lift the trophy at Roland Garros.
The British American duo came into the tournament having only played together at a handful of events in the past, and they didn’t drop a set on their way to the final.
But the pair quickly found themselves in a tough battle against Vesnina and Karatsev. The Russians bookended the opening set with a couple of breaks of serve, and looked to have full control in the match.
But in the second set, Salisbury and Krawczyk stepped their game up a level. Their points won on first serve jumped by over 20% and the match became far more edgy, with both sides trying to find a way to tilt the scoreline in their favour.
In a close set each side only managed to work up one break point each, but it was Salisbury and Krawczyk who turned up in the biggest moment, seizing their opportunity to level the scores.
Full of confidence, Salisbury and Krawczyk raced to a 4-0 lead in the deciding match tie-break and only lost a single point on serve as they completed their first Grand Slam mixed doubles victory.
Speaking after their triumph, Salisbury said: "All week I think we have just gone into it kind of relaxed, enjoying ourselves, seeing what happens and we have come out with a Grand Slam title. We weren't really expecting this - it is a bit of a shock!
"I think just in the second set we had a couple close games. I'm not sure what the score was, I think early on in the set, and I hit an ace on that point - that was important to hold there.
"We played a really good game to break at four-all, and then, yeah, just hung on from there. I think they dropped their level a bit, and they didn't play as well in the tie-break, but we also stepped up and played some good points.
"We've got a good partnership going, although I feel a bit bad because we are actually not playing together at Wimbledon. A couple months ago I said that I was probably going to play with a Brit for Wimbledon. I thought it would be good to have an all-British partnership."
