New York, Sep 6 (IANS) India’s Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek Thursday came back from a set down to oust top seeds Mike and Bob Bryan, thereby booking their seat in the men’s doubles final of the US Open here.
The Indo-Czech pair took an hour and 51 minutes to beat the tournament favourites 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 at the Arthur Ashe Stadium here.
The fourth seeds were completely outclassed in the first set. The American pair won 19 out of 20 points on first serves at 95 percent. In contrast, their opponents managed to win just 14 out of the 23 points.
The poor performance seemed to shake things up for Paes and Stepanek as they rallied back to take a 2-0 lead in the second. The Bryan brothers launched a mini-comeback of their own, tying the set at 2-2.
From then on in, it was all Paes and Stepanek as they gained control of the match closing out the set 6-3.
The second set loss took the wind out of the top seeds as they slumped to 0-4 in the third, all but handing the match to the Indo-Czech team.
To their credit, the American twins didn’t give up and with the score 1-5 they came back to within touching distance winning the next three games and make it 4-5 but it was too little too late as Stepanek held on to his serve to close out the match.
The loss ended Bryan brothers’ hopes of becoming the first team since 1951 to win all four Grand Slam tournaments in men`s doubles in a single year.
The American duo had won four straight Grand Slams, beginning with last year`s US Open.
