Bryan Brothers Cruise Into Houston QFs

Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan began their bid for a seventh Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship title in style on Wednesday, beating Taro Daniel and Yoshihito Nishioka 6-1, 6-1.

The Miami Open presented by Itaú champions took just 46 minutes to win their sixth consecutive match on tour, winning 81 percent of points behind their first serves and breaking their Japanese opponents on five occasions. The top seeds are looking to reach their fourth consecutive final on tour, having reached finals in Acapulco and Indian Wells before winning their 115th title as a team in Miami.

There was mixed success for the twins’ fellow seeded teams in Texas, as Dustin Brown and Frances Tiafoe upset second seeds Ryan Harrison and Ben McLachlan 6-2, 7-6(4). Brown and Tiafoe did not face a single break point in the 66-minute contest.

Third seeds Julio Peralta and Horacio Zeballos were also eliminated in the first round, with Max Mirnyi and Philipp Oswald securing a 6-3, 7-6(0) win over the South American duo. But fourth seeded pairing Santiago Gonzalez and Donald Young survived, dominating a decisive Match Tie-break to defeat Argentina’s Guillermo Duran and Andres Molteni 6-3, 4-6, 10-1.

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The Grand Prix Hassan II in Marrakech witnessed a similar result for its top-seeded team, as Nikola Mektic and Alexander Peya also dropped just two games to reach the quarter-finals.

Mektic and Peya took just 37 minutes to dispatch Moroccan wild cards Amine Ahouda and Yassine Idmbarek 6-0, 6-2. The Croatian-Austrian team conceded just four points behind their first serves en route to victory.

Marcus Daniell and Dominic Inglot also advanced, defeating Hans Podlipnik-Castillo and Andrei Vasilevski 6-3, 7-6(4). The third-seeded team saved all six break points they faced to reach the last eight. One seeded pairing would fall, however, as Jamie Cerretani and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi defeated Dutch fourth seeds Robin Haase and Matwe Middelkoop 6-3, 3-6, 10-3 in 75 minutes.

Did You Know?
The Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship has a long history of American doubles champions, with 28 previous editions featuring an American winner. The longest American absence from the title is four years, from 1970 inaugural champions Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner to 1974 where Jimmy Connors won the event alongside Romania’s Ilie Nastase.