Bob and Mike Bryan had an excellent plan. One last round-the-world trip for this team of unmatched identical twins. Collect some cash as a prize, remove your caps in Melbourne and Paris and in Wimbledon, then end in a great blanket of love for tennis at the US Open in New York, where they have won their momentum at home five times.
So this won’t happen, not this year anyway.
The Bryan brothers face the same decision in front of any number of professional athletes of a certain age. They targeted 2020 as their swan song, a year that could, with a little luck, create the type of storybook that ends every athlete, but only very few – Pete Sampras, Peyton Manning, David Ross – they really get. At the very least, they would be able to say goodbye.
Now the Bryan brothers have to figure out if they want, or even can, put the band together for a second attempt on a farewell tour in 2021. In fact, they don’t even know if they want to worry about playing in the United States. Open in September if it happens. Do you live in an almost bubble in an airport hotel in Queens? Do you play in an empty stadium without screaming and screaming for their characteristic and service chest bumps? What’s the point?
“I don’t think we want to play a sterile US Open without fans,” said Mike Bryan during a recent video chat from his home near Los Angeles.
Bob was in a nearby box on the screen from his home in Florida, complaining to Mike about playing their last game in conditions that would likely have seemed more like a practice session, even if another Grand Slam title was in play. “It’s not what we signed up for,” said Bob.
They signed up for World Team Tennis, the coed competition that puts teams of players against each other in a series of short games. Usually the nine-team league plays its annual summer season in various cities across the country. This year, it will all happen at Greenbrier, a West Virginia resort that has created a limited and supposedly clean environment in which players will live and compete and up to 500 fans will be allowed.
With coronavirus infection rates on the rise and professional athletes in other positive sports tests, no one knows if the tennis league will eventually be able to complete its season, even if it has the luxury of being a short sprint and isolated, compared to the three months traveling circus that baseball is planning.
For the Bryan brothers, the World Team Tennis represents a sort of experiment. They turned 42 in April, far exceeding the deadline for most professional tennis players, even those who only need to cover half the court. Bob underwent a right hip procedure two years ago. The World Team Tennis will require them to play more than a dozen games in 20 days, which will give them a decent idea of whether their bodies could handle the rigors of the professional tour for another 14 months.
The first part of this year showed some promises. They lost in the Australian Open third round, then won a tournament in Delray Beach, Florida. It was their 119th title together. Then they won the doubles game in a Davis Cup game against Uzbekistan in Honolulu.
They headed to Indian Wells, California, for what is known as the fifth Grand Slam, to take one last spin in one of their favorite tournaments. This is where tennis stopped abruptly. The rest of the sports world followed suit days later.
“We had won five games and felt very positive,” said Bob.
And then, for a long time, they had no idea how they felt. Their main game partner has become the Slinger Bag, a portable ball machine created by a company with which the brothers signed up as sponsors last year. Mike settled in his backyard in California and practiced his bursts. Bob dragged her to a courthouse near where she lives in Florida and got by.
From a tennis standpoint, they yearned for the years they lived under one roof and finding a hitting partner only required a knock on the bedroom door at the end of the corridor. They are what are known as “mirror twins” which is a subset of identical twins.
Facing each other, they appear as reflections. Mike, for example, is right-handed, while Bob is left-handed, making them ideal teammates and practice companions. But life happens. Bob got married and moved to Florida in 2010. He has three children, who were supposed to attend the farewell tour.
Now, as professional sports try to revive themselves, the Bryan brothers will try to figure out if they can restart their career after the layoff and if the stretch in the next year would be worthwhile.
“We still love the game,” said Bob. But love is never enough. They need their health.
Hard-core tennis fans who pay attention to doubles – and are the hardest of the hard core – will know quickly enough if the Bryan brothers think they have it.
If they show up at the US Open, it won’t be for a farewell or for the money. They won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles together. Mike won two more playing Jack Sock. The Bryan brothers are the rare doubles specialists who have become popular enough to earn profitable sponsorship deals.
They have enough money, but what they will need if they want to try and say goodbye to full stadiums next year is a sharp drop in the leaderboard points, so they can get high seeds and have the best chance to play deep in tournaments. The way the system is set up now, they can only maximize their points if they play and are good for the US Open, then the French Open and many other tournaments scheduled for the fall.
That is, if they can.
“It all depends on how our bodies hold up,” said Mike. “At 42, it’s all about recovery.”
