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Left-handed Bob Bryan hits a winner on Wednesday night. Bob and his brother, Mike, teammed up to

Wednesday night found the Bryan brothers one step closer to their goal of winning the Mercedes-Benz Cup.

The doubles team – of twins – defeated the team of Alex Bogomolov-Taylor Dent, 6-2, 7-6 in a match that, despite a small comeback from Bogomolov-Dent in the second set, went to the Bryans easily.

“I think we know doubles better than they do,” said twin Mike, who is only discernible from Bob as being the right-handed half of the pair. “We had to make them feel uncomfortable through poaching and playing through the middle.”

Immediately following Mardy Fish’s singles victory over Belgian Gilles Elseneer, the Bryans took the court at Straus Stadium with confidence, but lost the first game of the match. After trading games in the beginning of the match, the Bryans surged ahead at 3-2 and didn’t look back, taking the remaining three games for the set. The set was decided at 40-30, when Bob made a cross-court overhead kill hit with such fierceness it prompted Dent to duck for cover.

The second set wasn’t as decisive, however. Bogomolov-Dent again took the first game, but it was the second game that provided some fireworks. At deuce in the pivotal second game, the Bryans eeked out the game to make it 1-1, prompting Bogomolov to slam his racquet down in frustration. An overhead kill by Mike Bryan put the twins ahead 2-1, but Bogomolov-Dent refused to give the match away. In fact, the pair were ahead at 6-5 for the set but couldn’t pull through as the Bryans continually employed a serve and volley technique that forced their opponents, especially Bogomolov, to stay on the run. At one point Bogomolov took a pseudo-swan dive into the net in an attempt to return a chip from the Bryans.

An overhead kill by Bob forced the set into tiebreak, with the Bryans taking the last four points consecutively for the match, only after bodyslamming in celebration following their point to even the tiebreak at 1-1.

“When it gets into the tiebreaker, you never know what’s going to happen,” said Mike. “This is our first match on hard court for a long time and we’re healthy and feeling good.”

Thursday, the Bryans will face the team of Robbie Koenig (Russia) and Thomas Shimada (Japan), an unseeded team who defeated Mardy Fish and Jeff Morrison in the Round of 16, in the quarterfinals.