Bob and Mike Bryan were again made to work hard in their third-round match at Melbourne Park on Sunday, dropping the opening set for the third consecutive time before drawing on their vast experience to find a way home.
“I think it bodes well for our mind frame (losing the opening sets),” they said. “We’re competing hard, we’re pulling together and we’re not letting these deficits get us down.”
“I’m really proud of how we’re going about our business here. Hopefully we will keep this thing going.”
The six-time Australian Open champions lost the first set in a tiebreaker against Frenchmen Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin but rallied to take the match 6-7(2) 7-6(5) 6-3. The Americans (seeded No.6 this year) will now face Marcin Matkowski of Poland and Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi for a coveted semifinal berth.
“It’s going to be just a few points here and there like all these doubles matches are,” they said about the upcoming match. “The margins are so fine, we just have to take care of our stuff and not have any lapses.”
Meanwhile, the Columbian duo of Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah made short work of Leander Paes and Rajav Ram, denying the 44-year-old Paes an opportunity to extend his record as the oldest player to advance this far in a major during the Open era.
The No.11 seeds needed just over an hour to overpower the unseeded Indian pair 6-1 6-2 and lock in a quarterfinals berth where they will face Aussie favourite sons Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Groth – after their opponents, Spain’s Pablo Andujar and Albert Ramos-Vinolas – were forced to retire midway through their opening set.
Aussie Anastasia Rodionova was also unable to continue in her third round encounter as she and Ukrainian partner Nadiia Kichenok retired against 10th-seed Romanians Irina Begu and Monica Niculescu.
Meanwhile, the fourth seeds – featuring one half of the reigning Australian Open champions – Czechs Lucie Safarova (who took the 2017 title with Bethanie Mattek-Sands) and Barbora Strycova, were able to recover quickly from a slow start to defeat the Romanian/Brazilian duo of Sorana Cirstea and Beatriz Haddad Maia 2-6 6-0 6-4.
