Joe Salisbury chose his goodbye carefully. Not a low-key Challenger event. Not a quiet week in Europe. New York. The US Open. The court that made him a history maker.
The former world number one doubles player and six-time Grand Slam doubles champion has retired from professional tennis, drawing a line under one of the most decorated doubles careers Britain has seen in the Open Era.
He signed off in familiar company. Salisbury and his long-time partner Rajeev Ram reached the semi-finals at Flushing Meadows this month, the final chapter for both men after Ram also decided to retire. For three straight years, this was their kingdom: in 2021, 2022 and 2023 they became the first pair ever to win three consecutive US Open men’s doubles titles. No team had done it before. Very few will get close.
To finish where they ruled felt fitting.
Britain’s doubles standard-bearer
Salisbury leaves as Britain’s most successful men’s doubles player of the Open Era. The numbers back it up. Seventeen tour-level titles. Four men’s doubles majors, starting with the 2020 Australian Open alongside Ram and followed by that remarkable New York treble. Two mixed doubles Grand Slams with Desirae Krawczyk. Back-to-back triumphs at the season-ending ATP Finals in 2022 and 2023.
He did it without fuss, without the noise that often surrounds singles stars, but with a relentlessness that made him a constant threat on the biggest stages.
At 34, Salisbury decided the time was right. He has been weighing up his future for a while, and says he is “very happy with the decision”. The tone of his farewell message, posted on Instagram, carried the calm of a man at peace with what comes next.
“Tennis has been my life for as long as I can remember and I have been incredibly fortunate to have had all the opportunities, experiences and success that I have,” he wrote. “To be able to travel the world and call playing tennis my job has been a dream come true and I never believed I could have lived the life and had the career that I have. I gave it my all and know I can be proud and look back with no regrets.”
The cost of life on the road
The trophies tell one story. The last few years add another layer.
At the start of this season, Salisbury stepped away from the tour for three months. He spoke openly to BBC Sport about the anxiety that had been shadowing him, not so much on court but everywhere around it. The airports. The hotels. The endless cycle.
He said it left him with a “feeling of dread”, a weight that made the constant travel and the grind of the calendar far less enjoyable. For a player who had reached the summit of his discipline, that kind of emotional toll matters. It shapes decisions. It shortens careers.
So when he says he is content with walking away now, it carries substance. This is not a player clinging on or pushed out by results. This is a champion choosing the moment.
A career with no loose ends
Salisbury’s record will sit prominently in British tennis history. World number one in doubles. Multiple majors. Season-ending titles. A partnership with Ram that became one of the defining acts of the men’s doubles decade.
He didn’t just collect trophies; he set a benchmark for what a modern British doubles specialist can be — athletic at the net, tactically sharp, and unafraid of the sport’s biggest arenas.
The curtain fell in New York, in the city where his name is etched deepest into the draw sheets. No farewell exhibition, no extended lap of honour. Just one last serious run at a Slam, one more tilt at the kind of title that came to define him.
Seventeen titles, six Grand Slams, and a career he insists he can “look back [on] with no regrets.” For a doubles player who quietly became a standard, what more is there to ask for?
