Bryans Capture Fourth Madrid Crown

© Getty ImagesBob and Mike Bryan celebrated with a customary chest bump.

World No. 1 pairing Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan won the Mutua Madrid Open title for the fourth time on Sunday as they defeated sixth seeds Michael Llodra and Nenad Zimonjic in the final of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 clay-court tennis tournament.

The Bryan twins were also victorious in the Spanish capital in 2006-2007 and reclaimed the title last year with victory over Daniel Nestor and Zimonjic. Victory marked their 71st tour-level team title, and their 19th at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 level – the second greatest tally behind Nestor’s 24.

The Americans, currently No. 1 in the 2011 ATP Doubles Team Rankings, are early front runners to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and added a further 1000 ATP World Tour ranking points to their total. The top eight teams at the end of the regular season will qualify for the year-end championships in London.

The top seeds were rarely troubled throughout the match, saving the one break point they faced and capitalising on all three of their opportunities to claim victory in just 56 minutes. The 33 year olds had saved match point in a gripping semi-final win over their fellow Americans John Isner and Sam Querrey a day earlier.

"We’re really happy," said Mike Bryan. "We were fortunate to squeak through yesterday’s match against Querrey and Isner, when we had a crazy match point. We felt like we had no pressure today and I thought we played one of our best matches of the tournament."

Bob Bryan added, "We got through a tight one yesterday and today we felt like we were playing with the house chips. We played very aggressive today. We love Madrid; the conditions are very light, it suits our game well."

The Bryans claimed their fourth tour-level title of the season and their third on clay. They clinched their third successive Australian Open crown in January, before winning back-to-back clay-court titles at Houston and Monte-Carlo in April. They also finished runners-up last week in Barcelona (l. to S. Gonzalez-Lipsky) and in the first week of the season in Sydney (l. to Dlouhy-Hanley).

French-Serbian duo Llodra and Zimonjic, who joined forces full time at the beginning of the year, were bidding for their first team title, having also lost out in the Rotterdam final in February (l. to Melzer-Petzschner).

The 30-year-old Llodra dropped to an 18-18 mark in tour-level doubles finals, while the 34-year-old Zimonjic, a champion in Madrid in 2009, was denied his 40th tour-level title (39-27 mark).