Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski beat Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic 6-3 7-5 in the doubles tournament at the Nitto ATP Finals. The fifth seeds move to 1-0 in the John McEnroe round robin Group.
Salisbury and Skupski saved all seven break points they faced. The all-British team earned the first break in the eighth game to win the opening set 6-3. The fifth seeds saved four break points in the 10th game before breaking serve in the next game to take a 6-5 lead, when Pavic hit a double fault a 4-4 on the deciding point. They closed out the match on serve to improve their record to 3-1 in head-to-head matches against Arevalo and Pavic.
Salisbury won two back-to-back ATP Finals doubles titles in 2022 and 2023 with US specialist Rajeev Ram and has won his past 11 matches at this tournament. He is teaming up with Skupski in Turin for the first time. Skupski achieved his best result at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin 2022 when he reached the semifinals with Wesley Koolhof.
Salisbury and Skupski will take on Harri Heliovaara and Henri Patten and Christian Harrison and Evan King in the next two matches this week.
Salisbury and Skypski reached Grand Slam finals at Roland Garros and at the US Open and title matches in Doha, Barcelona and Toronto.
