Bryan Brothers Escape With Victory to Keep Year-End Semis Hopes Alive
The Bryan Brothers stayed in the running for a semifinal spot at the ATP World Tour finals, coming back to defeat Jean-Julien Rojer & Horia Tecau 6-7(4), 6-3, 10-6 on Wednesday.
After losing their opening match, Bob & Mike Bryan struggled out of the gate against the Dutch-Romanian pair. The first set saw a number of break points as each team was able to break the opponent twice in the opening frame.
The exchange of breaks kept the set even throughout the first eight games, and would eventually send it into a tiebreaker. Rojer & Tecau played much more efficient in the tie-breaker and were able to take it quickly to go up a set.
With their backs against the wall, the American twins would need to quickly get back into form in the second. However, Rojer & Tecau jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the frame, putting the Bryans’ hopes of advancing past the round-robin stage in jeopardy. From there, though, the Americans rattled off five straight games, using excellent returns, to force the match into a tiebreak.
Despite the momentum swinging back to the Bryans, Rojer & Tecau took an early 4-0 lead in the tie-break. But as was the case all-match long, points came in bunches for the Bryans, and they reeled off 10 of the next 12 points to complete the comeback.
The win is the 60th of the season for the Americans, who will play Alexander Peya & Bruno Soares in their final Group A match. The pair is vying for its fourth consecutive title at the year-end championships.
