American twins Mike and Bob Bryan dashed Leander Paes's bid for a grand double at the US Open as they won the men's doubles championship with a straight sets victory on Friday.
The Bryans, seeded second, beat Paes and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy 7-6 (5), 7-6 in the final for a second triumph at their home Grand Slam, the first coming in 2005.
Paes was in line for a double at the US Open after winning the mixed doubles title with Zimbabwe's Cara Black on Thursday.
The 25-year-old Dlouhy, who was made to pay for his inexperience at the level, finished runner-up for the second year in a row. He and fellow-Czech Pavel Vizner had gone down 7-5, 6-4 to Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle in last year's final.
The triumph gave the 30-year-old second seeds their sixth men's Grand Slam doubles crown, having emerged triumphant twice at the Australian Open and once at Wimbledon, the French Open.
Though the Czech came up with some stunning volleys and returns, for most of the time he looked out of place amongst the three leading doubles specialists. Obviously, then, he was targeted by the Bryans. In sum, Dlouhy just came up short when the points got tighter.
He served six double faults of the team's nine.
Paes-Dlouhy drew first blood when they broke the left-handed Bob for a 2-1 lead. But the duo failed to keep the momentum as Dlouhy lost serve in the sixth game.
With the first set going into the tie-break, the Bryans clearly looked better, more solid of the two teams. They powered their way through to seal the set at 7-5 when Dlouhy failed to get the return over the net.
The Indo-Czech pair battled hard in the second set, not letting the Bryans run away with the match. After restoring a break to level 2-2, they saved triple break-points off Paes's serve in the fifth game and remained in contention.
But Paes-Dlouhy blew away two chances to seal the second set and take the match into the decider. The Indian veteran, who had been solid throughout the match, served a double fault at 8-7 to let the Bryans off the hook. He wrested back the advantage with a return winner for 10-9, but Mike returned the favour on the very next point to level at 10-10 before proceeding to take the set and match.
