Bryan brothers fight back to avoid upset

There was none of their trademark chest bumping celebration at the end of their second consecutive five-set victory but it certainly meant a lot to Mike and Bob Bryan. The American twins came back from two sets to one down to triumph 5-7, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 over countrymen Scott Lipsky and Rajeev Ram on No.1 Court to make the semi-finals of the men’s doubles competition once again.

The defending champions’ outstanding play at the net helped them to seal a victory which was in some doubt at the end of the third set with unseeded Lipsky and Ram’s aggressive tennis seemingly seeing them heading towards a shock.

Despite leading 3-1 in the opening set, the Bryans both went on to lose serve as Lipsky and Ram claimed it 7-5. The brothers fought back in the second thanks to an early break but Lipsky helped break Mike at the fourth time of asking as the right hander served to stay in the third set.

The 34-year-old Bryans have been there and done it and never looked like panicking. They duly broke the Ram serve at 4-4 before Bob served it out to level at two sets all and the twins always looked the more likely to clinch the match after that. As it was, a double fault by Lipsky got the crucial break at 4-4 and Mike duly volleyed home the winning point to set up a semi-final with Great Britain’s Jonathan Marray and Dane Frederik Nielsen.

The Bryans have a busy week, as both have been involved in mixed doubles competition too, ahead of the Olympics later this month.

Another left-hand/right-hand combination in the shape of Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner continued their battling week in the other half of the draw. After their 16-14 final set exertions against Mikhail Elgin and Denis Istomin on Wednesday, the Austrian/German pairing had a rather more relaxing day, beating No. 5 seeds Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo, 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3.

Melzer and Petzschner, the No.10 seeds, will next take on Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau, finalists for the last two years. The Swedish Lindstedt and Romanian Tecau continued their impressive week as they look to make it third time lucky at SW19. The pair of right handers have yet to drop a set at Wimbledon in 2012 and never looked likely to see that statistic broken against unseeded Daniele Bracciali and Julian Knowle. Italian Bracciali and Knowle of Austria had put out top seeds Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor in a shock second round match. But Lindstedt and Tecau, seeded No.5, eased to a convincing 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 victory in just one hour and 40 minutes.