Three doubles teams took gold medals home from the Rio Olympics last month. And at least for some of those champions, momentum is carrying over into doubles at the US Open, the final Grand Slam of the season.
Russians Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova, who both lost earlier on in their respective singles campaigns, came to New York with plenty of confidence after winning the gold medal in women's doubles without dropping a set. They won their 13th match in a row on Tuesday, beating No. 13 seeded Andreja Klepac and Katarina Srebotnik, 6-4, 6-2.
“It’s been a great summer for us, definitely,” Vesnina said. “Now we’re together again, playing and winning and enjoying our time together on and off the court as well. Definitely, our game right now is really good. We’re feeling each other really well.”
The duo did not play together between last year’s Wimbledon and the clay season because of an injury Makarova was dealing with, but they have not missed a step. The fifth seeds should be the favorite in the semifinals. There, the Russians will play the No. 12 seeded pair of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova, who cruised past Americans Asia Muhammad and Taylor Townsend, 6-1, 6-2.
The surprise of the day came on Louis Armstrong Stadium, with a Rio gold medalist part of the underdog pairing that pulled off the upset.
Third seeds Bob and Mike Bryan, five-time champions in Flushing Meadows, were selected to play the final competitive match on the storied arena against gold-winner Marc Lopez and partner Feliciano Lopez, the eighth-seeded Spaniards.
The 38-year-old twins were looking to win their first Grand Slam since the 2014 US Open, when they defeated Marc Lopez and Marcel Granollers to win their 100th career title as a team and 16th major crown. But despite fighting back to break late in the second set to eventually force a decider, the Spaniards advanced to the semifinals, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3.
In the mixed doubles draw, Nenad Zimonjic and Yung-Jan Chan survived a match tiebreak after getting blown out in the first set of their quarterfinal to beat the No. 2 seeds, Yaroslava Shvedova and Bruno Soares. They will face another unseeded pair in Mate Pavic and Laura Siegemund, who defeated Americans Dennis Novikov and Nicole Gibbs to reach the semifinals.
Tomorrow, the remaining men’s and women’s doubles quarterfinalists will compete, while the mixed doubles players will compete for a place in Friday's final.
