Bryans Prevail In 1am Finish In Rome

Fifth seeds Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan completed a 6-7(5), 6-2, 10-7 victory over French duo Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the semi-finals of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.

The American twins claimed the victory on their second match point at 1:06am in Rome, after Novak Djokovic and Kei Nishikori sent the doubles affair deep into the night with a three-hour singles semi-final to open the evening session. The Bryans will appear in their seventh final at the Foro Italico, having lifted the trophy in 2008 (d. Nestor/Zimonjic), 2010 (d. Isner/Querrey) and 2013 (d. Bhupathi/Bopanna). They own a 35-18 record in ATP World Tour Masters 1000 finals and will bid for their third tour-level crown overall in 2016 (Houston, Barcelona).

Earlier on Saturday, Vasek Pospisil and Jack Sock reached their second Masters 1000 final of the season as they defeated Florin Mergea and Rohan Bopanna 7-6(4), 7-6(2), setting a sixth meeting against the Bryans. They own a 3-2 lead in the FedEx ATP Head2Head series, most recently taking a quarter-final battle at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.

“It was a high-level match today,” said Pospisil. “We executed well and returned well in the tie-breaks and on the big points and that’s what got us through. Overall it was a solid performance in all aspects. We are playing better and gaining confidence with every match. We have one more to go to get the title, so we’ll go out there tomorrow and fight for it.” 

The Canadian/American duo rallied from an early break down in the first set to clinch the opener in a tie-break. They failed to convert match point when serving at 5-3 in the second set, but regrouped to prevail in another tie-break after 85 minutes.

Pospisil and Sock were runners-up at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells (l. to Herbert/Mahut) in March. The 2014 Wimbledon champions are chasing their fifth tour-level title together and first since Beijing in October 2015.