Salisbury becomes seventh Brit to win Australian Open mens doubles & wants to join property ladder with 193k cheque

JOE SALISBURY has revealed the secret behind his Australian Open doubles success his mum washed all his dirty laundry!

And the Putney star reckons he can finally get on the London property market thanks to the 193,000 winning cheque.

The 27-year-old joins an exclusive club of six men which includes Fred Perry and Jamie Murray who have been crowned mens doubles champions Down Under.

Salisbury and US partner Rajeev Ram overcame Aussie wildcards Max Purcell and Luke Saville 6-4 6-2 on the Rod Laver Arena.

Mum Carolyn has been a constant companion in Melbourne, watching all his matches and helping with house chores.

Sheepish Salisbury joked: I wouldnt say I have been making her do my washing. But she has volunteered a few times. And I didnt turn it down, no!

Its been great to have her here the whole time. Its her first time coming out to Australia.

My mum, my whole family, theyve done so much for me. Obviously financially when I was younger, paying for all my coaching, all my travel.

My mum and dad gave up half their weekends driving me to tournaments, paying for me to go to university in America.

Then after that my first couple years after I finished college, I wasn’t earning any money. They were paying for my coaching, for my travel, for everything.

Theyve always believed in me really strongly.

Salisbury rents a room off his sister in Peckham, South London, but now has the financial independence to spread his wings.

He said: I havent thought about it too much. Ive tried to stay in the moment, not think about what would happen if we won.

But yes, thats the next thing on the list looking to buy a place sometime this year.

Salisbury and Ram played extremely well against the self-styled Aussie Slugs and finally achieved the first-set breakthrough in the seventh game.

The second set only took 28 minutes as the No11 seeds cruised to victory and cemented Salisbury as the worlds fourth best doubles player.

Its a far cry from the days in his youth and about five years ago when he was struggling physically and contracted glandular fever.

And Salisbury also played in relative singles obscurity for years without getting any luck.

He said: My story shows even if youre not one of the top juniors winning all the junior Grand Slams or breaking through when youre 19, 20, that you can still have a very good career.

Obviously its still early days for me. It should give a lot of belief to other players that if you keep working at it and have the right support, you can do it.

I still keep an eye on my workload. Its not been as big of an issue the last couple years. There are still times when I dont feel as good as Id hope to.

During my juniors, I barely played for three years leading up to college, when I had glandular fever, a lot of injuries.

Then I was going to college, not really sure what I wanted to do, if I wanted to play professionally after. Then I decided I did want to give it a go.

For the first sort of couple of years after, there were definitely times where I wasnt making any money, wasnt making a living out of it.

There were definitely some times where I guess I questioned whether I did want to keep doing it. But deep down Ive always known that I really did want to.

@Rob_Maul