The Bryans are "mirror twins," more or less reflective of each other. The most obvious manifestation of this is that Mike is right-handed and the Bob left-handed. Only about one percent of infants are “monozygotic” (identical) twins. And only 25 percent of monozygotic twins are "mirror" or opposite- feature twins. For our purposes, the slim odds that produced the Bryans and that lefty-righty pre-disposition translates to terrific court coverage in doubles.
The Bryans play a straightforward brand of power tennis. Even in style, the “twins” effect is pronounced, and it differentiates them from their rivals. Watching the Bryans side of the court during a doubles match, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re watching a singles match but still suffering the after effects of a night on the town. It’s like having double vision.
Sure, you can nit-pick certain things one does better than the other—Mike is a better returner, Bob owns a more threatening serve; Bob’s forehand is bigger, but Mike’s hands are quicker and “softer” around the net—but the basic similarity is amazing as well as highly useful. Just who or what do you attack when both Bryans are powerfully built, tall (although at 6'4" Bob is an inch taller) serving-and-volleying machines, and they both play one-handed backhands with their forehand volleys to the middle?
Over the past decade and a half, the Bryans have continually built on the formidable foundation of their meat-and-potatoes style as well as their biologically determined advantages.
The Bryans have been very careful to safeguard their advantage. After they blew a chance to end their semifinal an hour earlier than they ultimately did the other day, the twins were particularly happy about how well they suppressed any impulse to point fingers at each other.
“It would have been very easy to make a couple of snipey comments to each other, which could have kind of unraveled the vibe,” Bob remarked in the presser afterward. “We did a great job of collecting ourselves and not saying anything, which we tend to do in those moments. It's sometimes better not to talk. Because as brothers and twins, you don't want to be coached by your sibling.”
“Ever,” Mike chimed in.
“Ever,” Bob repeated, with emphasis.
Bob believes that no ordinary sibling relationship could bear up to the stress and strain of what a successful doubles team goes through in the long term. He thinks only twins can “stand the test of time” in that way.
As Bob poignantly explained, it’s a real asset to know, after a heartbreaking loss, that your partner isn’t going to be looking around for a new partner. “No matter how bad I return during a stretch, I know Mike’s not going to be talking to (doubles specialist Daniel) Nestor, and texting Nestor.”
The Bryans have many advantages, but being twins is the only one that’s God-given. For these extraordinary doubles champions (just savor the hyper-natural symmetry of athletically gifted individuals who happen to be twins playing the only really two-player game on our radar) also have worked extremely hard to build upon ever success and to keep improving. You can begin to tick off their skills and habits with perhaps the least spectacular of them, the fact that they always show up.
We all know that doubles has always been relegated to the back seat, behind singles tennis. The doubles player’s lot—and it’s true for even the best of them—is to walk out there after 10 or 11 pm, after a knockout singles match has just ended, and a crowd of 10 or 12 thousand has dwindled down to barely enough people to fill a lifeboat. That happens, even at Grand Slam events. Yet the Bryans never, ever, let down their guard, lose their enthusiasm, or settle for just mailing one in.
Despite their success, the twins also have remained intensely focused students of the game. They’re good enough to make a terrific living without chasing betterment or further records, yet they constantly have their noses poked under the hood of the game. Just read how Bob elaborated on his comments (above) about Dodig and Melo:
“New combinations do well right away sometimes. (Teams) also do well when they say they're going to retire, or they're going to split. That's when you see the teams also have a run. Usually we have a long history of game plans with the established teams. When a new team comes together, you really have to watch some tape and figure out what they're doing different.”
That’s due diligence, and it’s a comment on the acute professionalism these men cultivate — a dedication to the craft that has been as important as their significant birth advantage, as well a hedge to keep that edge from becoming a liability. This year, the Bryans also decided to round out their game with a few bells and whistles. It’s not as if their brand of power doubles has become less effective. Rather, they don’t want to become predictable, or trapped in their own success. Those tweaks have helped account for their outstanding start to the year.
It all began when Mike, the more creative of the two, found himself thinking about different shots and tactics that they either never used or eliminated from their repertoire along the way. He decided jointly with Bob that they ought to experiment with some of the formations, mix it up in their poaching, and bring a few new wrinkles to their “second ball” after serve or return.
“We don’t want to hit these shots a million times,” Mike said, “Just a few times in a match, to keep some teams off balance.”
Looking ahead to the final, a jocular Bob contemplated the degree to which a Bryan brothers story these days is a story about chasing history: “If we win this one it will be, ‘Oh, do the calendar year Grand Slam.’ And then we'll be answering questions about that. When we won the (U.S.) Open last year we thought we broke the record, but it was the Open era Grand Slam record. These types of records and achievements, there's a lot of 'em.”
Given how hard they’ve been working, the Bryans have taken to indulging in the new habit embraced by so many tennis stars, the post-match ice bath.
“All the singles guys do them,” Mike quipped. “We jump right in there, too.”
I’m not so sure I’d like to hop into an ice bath with Mike or any other Bryan, but it sure is nice to have them around, forever raising the bar in doubles, gobbling up one record after another, double-handedly adding to the repute of the game so often overshadowed by singles.