Bob and Mike Bryan, who are going for the calendar-year Grand Slam at the U.S. Open, say they made a radical decision to switch return-of-serve courts in order to come back from a set and a break down to defeat Canadians Vasek Pospisil and Daniel Nestor, 6-7 (1), 7-5, 6-2. Bob Bryan, who is left-handed, moved to the ad court in order to negate the left-handed Nestor’s strong serving into the deuce court.
“It’s a pretty big deal because we just never practice the other way,” the right-handed Mike Bryan said. “I have only taken a few deuce-court returns in the last three, four years. I don’t see it very often. We’re not very comfortable with our second shots. We’re not used to poaching with our backhand volleys in the middle. But when you’re desperate, you have nothing to lose just because we didn’t have much hope the other way. We have done it against Nestor in the past. We switched up with him in the Aussie Open final and it worked a few times against him. It was Bob’s idea.”
Bob added: “[Nestor] was creating some incredible angles in the deuce court wide, and he was serving the lefty T, so it felt like the box was huge. I thought I would have a little bit better chance in the ad where he would have to come right down the T to my backhand, and if I slid around I would get more forehands. It ended up working out, but it was just a desperate call. We were feeling a little bit hopeless on the return games, and throwing in a switch like that sometimes is a psychological advantage.”