"The last one always feels the freshest. It feels good," said the Bryans. "I don’t think we ever lost a final here so this is definitely our most successful tournament. We have some great memories. It’s special because we get to share all our memories with our friends and family and even though it’s not a Grand Slam we really get up for it and want to win. It’s going to feel good coming back next year and seeing another year up on the board."
The nearby Camarillo natives extended their winning streak at their hometown tournament to 12 straight matches – all without dropping a set – since a loss in the 2005 semi-finals. They improved to a 24-6 lifetime record in Los Angeles, including a 24-2 mark since winning their first of four titles in 2001. They followed with wins in 2004, ’06 and ’07, but missed last year’s tournament due to the Olympics.
The No. 1 duo in the ATP Doubles Rankings snapped their longest title drought in more than six years as they claimed their first ATP World Tour title since April in Houston. Coming into Los Angeles, they had played in eight tournaments without a title – the most since an 11-tournament title-less stretch from 2002 (last tournament) through 2003 (first 10).
"We came home from Europe without a title and I don’t know how many times we have done that," they said. "We lost in a few tough finals so it’s not like we played bad tennis. We played some of our best tennis at Wimbledon leading up to the final. We played great at Davis Cup. We went to focus on the big ones – Davis Cup, French Open and Wimbledon. We’re happy to come here and clean the slate and get number 54 and start off a good summer."
The Bryans, who improved to a circuit-best 47-11 season match record, had been successful in their first four final appearances of the season – titling at Sydney, the Australian Open, Delray Beach and Houston – but had finished runner-up in their past three finals at Monte-Carlo, Rome and Wimbledon.
The 31-year-old twins were appearing in their 90th ATP World Tour level final (54-36), and now stand three titles back of joining Fleming-McEnroe and Hewitt-McMillan at No. 2 on the Open Era team titles list. Woodbridge-Woodforde top the list with 61 titles.
The Bryans regret that they will have to pull out of Washington DC due to Mike's sore knees and hips - - - a hold over from the 14 week long clay court and grass court season. After a good rest this week, they should be ready to go in Montreal and Cincy and then the US Open. They hope to also get two weeks rest in September.
"We want to give a special thanks to Bob Kramer and his great staff and volunteers for hosting this wonderful event once again. He gave us Wild Cards here when we were starting our careers," said Bob.
"And we also appreciate so many of our family, friends and fans coming out to root us on. The atmosphere here in Southern California is just tremendous," added Mike, "and it was especially great to have our matches this week on the Tennis Channel."
Excerpts from the ATP Web Site.
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