Home favourite Jamie Murray and his partner Bruno Soares took control of group Edberg/Jarryd after they beat the Bob and Mike Bryan 6-3 6-4 on Tuesday afternoon.
From the start of the match both teams looked comfortable as they both held serve with ease. However momentum swung in the favour of Murray and Soares as they broke on their first break point to surge to a 5-3 lead. Jamie Murray then held to love to grab the opening set for his team, 6-3.
The second set once again saw Murray and Soares dominate through aggressive returning and great reflexes at the net. This proved evident when the Brit-Brazilian pair broke in the seventh game for a 4-3 lead. Both teams held serve and as a result Jamie Murray completed the victory in just over an hour.
After the match, Jamie Murray hailed the team’s performance “Probably one of our best matches of the year. We served really well throughout, cleaned up well on our serves. I think we both returned the ball smartly, put it in some difficult spots for them, and we were really active around the net.”
Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares will qualify for the semifinals tonight unless Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo beat Treat Huey and Max Mirnyi in straight sets. The win also means that the Brazillian-Brit pair are now just 175 points behind Pierre-Hughes Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in the team standings for 2016. They will now hope to do the clean sweep of wins in the round robin stage, when they face Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo on Thursday.
Analysis
I thought Jamie Murray served well and had some great reflexes at the net. Bruno Soares made some great returns into court today and really made the Bryans think of how they should defend the ball at the net. I think they are the joint favourites for the tournament alongside Henri Kontinen and John Peers who are in the other group. For the Bryan brothers, they didn’t have the same intensity or tenacity compared to their first match. They also got outplayed in some of the longer rallies at the net. They will need to improve if they want to reach the last four of this competition.
