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At least we now know what became of Milos Raonic’s sleeve.
To the relief of commentators the world over, Mike Bryan is toting the one-armed look at The Championships, providing a quick visual aid for those who struggle to tell the twins apart – it’s not always easy in the heat of battle to tell apart right-handed Mike and southpaw Bob.
The three-time champions are through to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for an 11th consecutive year after beating No.14 seeds Radek Stepanek and Nenad Zimonjic 7-5, 6-7(10), 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to set up a last-eight showdown with South African-American duo Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram, winners of the Halle doubles title ahead of The Championships.
It was a feisty way to end the day’s play on Centre Court, with Stepanek trying everything to get inside the Bryans’ heads. The Czech aimed a couple of tags and shot the odd barb over the net between points, pleading with the umpire to take action when the tagging came back to haunt him midway through the fourth set – all in good humour, and all in the pursuit of victory.
The Bryans finally made decisive headway with an early break in the fifth set to open up a 3-0 lead. Zimonjic saved two match points at 5-2 in the fifth, the first with an outstanding backhand pass after lofting a towering lob to stay in the point, but it merely delayed the inevitable by a game.
“Those are two guys that we’ve played so many times, they know our games inside out,” said Bob Bryan. “It was a mental challenge – we’re glad to be in the quarter-finals.”
It’s going to be quite a process - ice baths, the whole deal. It’s never easy.
As for Stepanek, “He’s a character,” added Mike Bryan, who noted the appearance of American golf legend Jack Nicklaus in the crowd. “He baits you, but you can’t fall for it. Luckily he’s out and we’re still going.”
Revenge will be in the air when the Bryans step out on court to face Klaasen and Ram, who beat the brothers in the semi-finals in Halle and the Australian Open in January. But the American 38-year-olds must first deal with the after-effects of the three-hour, seven-minute contest that took them through.
“It’s going to be quite a process after this five-setter,” admitted Bob Bryan. “Ice baths, the whole deal. It’s never easy. We were on top for some time – we want to win again, we’re hungry as ever. But it’s not getting any easier.”
With the late afternoon matches drenched in sunshine – a welcome change to last week – cool heads edged out hot tempers as top seeds Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut beat Sam Groth and Robert Lindstedt, the 2013 doubles champion, in four sets, 7-5, 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-3.
Groth and Lindstedt had the chance to turn the match in their favour in the third-set tie-break, but a double-fault on set point prompted the Australian to snap his racket in half over his knee before taking a comfort break to collect his thoughts, but to no avail.
The fourth was interrupted by a short negotiation over changing balls mid-game after umpire Jake Garner had forgotten to call for the switch. When play resumed, the Frenchmen finished the job with two late breaks to seal victory in two hours, 39 minutes, setting up a quarter-final clash with Finland’s Henri Kontinen and Australian John Peers, who reached the final with Jamie Murray 12 months ago.
Earlier in the day, fellow all-French team Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin are also though to the last eight after ousting 2014 champions Vasek Pospisil and Jack Sock, sporting a stars-and-stripes-clad racket out on No.2 Court.
In another cat-and-mouse encounter, the unseeded pair fought back from two sets to one down to win 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(3), 7-5, 6-4. Up next for the Frenchmen are world No.1 Murray and Brazil’s Bruno Soares, the Australian Open champions, who returned to resume their third-round showdown with No.16 seed Mate Pavic and Michael Venus after bad light forced them off on Monday night with the fifth set locked at 13-13.
The No.3 seeds didn’t need long to secure their spot in the quarter-finals, rounding out a 6-3, 7-6(3), 4-6, 4-6, 16-14 victory on Court 17.
