Mike Bryan observed recently that “Twin energy is weird,”, and doubtless that weirdness is accentuated when you play elite doubles with your identical brother, with the public expecting you to win every tournament on the calendar (including this one). “When we are clicking and everything is strong, it feels like no one can touch us. But it is a double-edged sword. When we lose a few matches, it can go a little sour because we take jabs at each because we have the competitive twin thing,” he continued.
And those “jabs” aren’t just verbal; they can also be physical. The most successful doubles team in history – consider how this is the 15th time they have qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals – can sometimes be a couple of brawlers. There was the occasion at Wimbledon one summer when they kicked and punched each other after a poor match, and a guitar was smashed against the wall. They have also been known to thump each other on the arms on flights home after tournaments, only pausing when the concerned stewardess checks with them that everything is okay.
Unlike many other doubles teams, these two don’t hold grudges with each other – their post-match dialogue can be “brutal and nasty”. Bob once observed that if he said what he said to anyone other than a twin brother, the relationship would be over in five minutes. The expectations from the tennis public are considerable, but then so are the brothers’ own aspirations. Such has been their success over the years – which includes winning this tournament four times already, with their last victory coming in 2014 – that they can’t take satisfaction from going deep into a tournament.
The only outcome that brings them any joy – and keeps their twin energy from going sour – is holding up the trophy. “The tough thing about us is that if don’t leave with the trophy, it’s devastating. We have high standards and sometimes that makes it not fun because we can’t get any kind of enjoyment out of a final or semi-final, like maybe some other players do,” Bob said. “That’s the burden we carry.”
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Their most profitable section of the season came during the clay-court swing when they won titles in Houston and Barcelona, before scoring an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 prize on the red courts of Rome, and finishing as the runners-up to Feliciano and Marc Lopez at Roland Garros (their last Grand Slam title came at the 2014 US Open, which must be the cause of considerable angst). Last month they became the first team to reach 1000 career doubles match wins.
In a couple of years, the brothers will turn 40, which is a milestone birthday for anyone, and especially for professional athletes (Mike is the elder by two minutes). Naturally, they have put some thought into how they might want to vacate the stage. “We don’t want limp out of our careers – we want to blast our way out as champions,” Bob said in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “We are working just as hard as we ever have.”