Bryan Brothers Fight Off Match Points

Top seeds and five-time champions Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan have survived a scare to reach the second round of the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship. The Americans fought back from two match points down in the match tie-break to deny countrymen Denis Kudla and Donald Young 3-6, 6-1, 11-9.

Trailing 7/9 in the match tie-break, the Bryan brothers reeled off the last four points of the match to keep their bid for a first title since ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Montreal last August. They saved five of seven break points in the one-hour, three-minute encounter to book a second round date with another all-American duo, wild cards Tommy Paul and Reilly Opelka.

Third seeds American Eric Butorac and Scott Lipsky also progressed. The Americans posted a straight-forward 6-4, 6-4 result against New Zealanders Marcus Daniell and Artem Sitak. They will face either Brian Baker and Dimitry Tursunov or Victor Estrella Burgos and Santiago Gonzalez.

The Australian-Brazilian pairing of Chris Guccione and Andre Sa had a tougher time of it, recovering from a set down to grind out a 5-7, 7-6(3), 10-2 win over the Austrian-Slovenian duo of Julian Knowle and Igor Zelenay. Knowle and Zelenay led a set and 5-2 in the second before Guccione and Sa mounted their comeback to book a second-round match against fourth seeds Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey.

In Marrakech, top seed Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt got off to a winning start, downing Moroccan wild cards Reda El Amrani and Lamine Ouahab 6-2, 6-4 in 57 minutes. Fourth seed Oliver Marach and Fabrice Martin were not so fortunate, falling in the opening round to Rohan Bopanna and Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-2.

The all-Argentine pairing of Guillermo Duran and Maximo Gonzalez had a 6-4, 7-6(7) triumph over Teymuraz Gabashvili and Jonathan Marray, while Marin Draganja and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi fought back for a 4-6, 6-4, 10-6 result over Jonathan Erlich and Colin Fleming.