WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — American twins Bob and Mike Bryan won a record-tying 11th Grand Slam men’s doubles title Saturday, defeating Robert Lindstedt of Sweden and Horia Tecau of Romania 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (2) in the Wimbledon final.
The Bryan brothers won at Wimbledon for the second time and matched Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge’s Open era record of 11 major titles.
“To equal the Woodies — a team that we idolized, the greatest team in our mind — is unbelievable,” Mike Bryan said. “To get their title record and get the Grand Slam record, I mean, I’m trying to figure out what’s left. We weren’t even thinking about 11 until Mark Woodforde came up and said, ‘Congrats on getting that 11th.’”
In the women’s final, Katarina Srebotnik of the Czech Republic and Kveta Peschke of Slovenia won their first Grand Slam title by defeating Samantha Stosur of Australia and Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-3, 6-1.
The No. 1-ranked Bryans won their 62nd career doubles title in 2010 in Los Angeles to surpass the record of 61 held by Woodforde and Woodbridge. The title on Saturday was the Bryans’ 73rd.
“They’re always supportive,” Mike Bryan said of the Australian pair. “They’re not jealous about their records. You know, they have their place in history. They’re in the Hall of Fame. They won six Wimbledons. They have a case, and they’re the best team, you know. We have a case now, obviously.”
The Bryans won their first Wimbledon title in 2006 to complete a full set of the four Grand Slam titles. They have won the Australian Open five times, the U.S. Open three times and lifted the French Open trophy in 2003.
They have lost three other Wimbledon finals and twice went to five sets in order to reach the final this year. But it was smooth sailing on Saturday in a dominant serving display against Tecau and Lindstedt, who also lost in last year’s final.
Tecau lost his serve early in each of the first two sets and the Bryan twins didn’t face a single break point in the match. Tecau and Lindstedt held on to take the third set into a tiebreaker but the Americans won it easily.
“This one felt really good,” Mike Bryan said. “We weren’t really threatened on our serve. So this one was definitely pretty smooth.”
While the men’s final featured only two breaks of serve, the women’s final that followed it on Centre Court had eight.
Lisicki, who lost to Maria Sharapova in the singles semifinals, and Stosur completed a 6-3, 4-6, 8-6 semifinal win over Marina Erakovic of New Zealand and Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand. That match was suspended by darkness at 5-5 in the third set Friday.
The unseeded Lisicki and Stosur started well in the final but after taking a 3-1 lead in the first set, they lost eight straight games to allow the second-seeded Srebotnik and Peschke to take control.
At 3-0 down in the second set, Lisicki and Stosur recovered one of the breaks but were immediately broken again.
With the win, Srebotnik and Peschke also took over the No. 1 ranking in doubles.
The 35-year-old Peschke became the first Czech player to win the Wimbledon women’s doubles title since Jana Novotna in 1998.
Earlier Saturday, Petra Kvitova became the first Czech women’s singles champion since Novotna in the same year.
“Terrific feeling,” Peschke said. “I mean, I’m playing for so many years, so this is, we say, the cherry on the cake. I’m very proud of us. We played magnificent through the whole tournament and through the whole year. We are happy to have the trophy in our hands.”