By Brian Cleary, USOpen.org

Mike and Bob Bryan lost their third-round doubles match to Mikhail Youzhny and Leos Friedl in a tight three-setter. The loss snapped the Bryan brothers open-era record of reaching at least the final in seven straight Grand Slams, a streak that went back to the 2005 Australian Open and included titles at the US and Australian Opens and Wimbledon. Yet, despite the heart-wrenching loss and the fact that the match ended near midnight, the Bryans stayed on court after their match for more than 10 minutes, until every fan requesting an autograph got one.

Their loss here notwithstanding, the Bryans’ success on tour over the past two years, and their fan-friendly approach off it, have made them transcendent figures in the tennis world. By combining the game of Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge, aka “The Woodies,’’ the dominant doubles team of the 1990s, with the personality of Luke and Murphy Jensen, aka the Jensen Brothers, who weren’t as successful on court but whose personalities drew huge flocks of fans, the Bryans are now one of the biggest draws in the game.

“Can you name all five of the top-five singles players in the world right now?’’ asks Luke Jensen, now a tennis commentator on ESPN. “But the Bryans, have you seen it? They fill up Louis Armstrong Stadium.’’

The Bryan brothers on-court success is impressive. They have finished two of the last three years as the No. 1 doubles team in the world and have won 32 career titles together. This year alone they’ve won two Grand Slams, the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and six titles overall. They are having such a good year that, if you combined their prize money, they would be third on the ATP Tour’s money list, behind only Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

Their success on the court is not surprising. They are each 6-foot-4, hit their serves routinely in the 135 mph-range, and are so precise in their preparation that they practice some 50 doubles specific shots every practice.

But above everything else, the advantage they have over every other team is that they have been playing together since they were toddlers. Their parents, Wayne and Kathy, both tennis pros, began teach their sons when they were just two. They played junior doubles together and attained unprecedented success through the years. They reached the No. 1 doubles ranking in every age-division throughout their junior career--in the 12s, 14s, 16s and 18s. They also twice won the boys' 18s doubles title at Kalamazoo, the US Open juniors and the NCAA doubles title together at Stanford.

“People think Mike and Bob backed into doubles in the pros, like they couldn’t make in singles so they turned their sights to doubles,’’ says their father, Wayne. “But that’s not the case. Doubles has always been No. 1 for them.''

The Bryan brothers were always so focused on doubles that most influences they gleaned from top pros when they were younger were from the doubles teams that they loved and looked up to.

Wayne Bryan says one of the first players who had an impact on the Bryans was the former doubles great Ricky Leach, and it was completely inadvertent. Leach was about to walk out to play a Davis Cup match and the Bryans, at the time only 10 years old, had snuck into the tunnel where the players went out to the court. When Leach saw the Bryans he said casually, “Hey, how’s it going? You guys play tennis?’’

The Bryans responded, with some trepidation, “Yeah,’’ then added boldly, “We just won the Long Beach 10-and-unders.’’

Leach nodded and said as he passed on to the court, “Yeah, I won that one too.’’

For some reason, says Wayne Bryan, that exchange really got his sons going.

“It was like, right then and there, the boys were like, ‘Long Beach 10-and-unders. Davis Cup.’ As if the two were connected by a straight line.”

The Bryans admired and drew inspiration from a lot of the top doubles teams through the years, including Tim and Tom Gullikson, a team who, before the Bryans, held the record for the most doubles titles by a brothers team at 10.

Off the court the Bryans have had as much success as they have had on it. They have endorsement contracts with nine different companies, including Adidas and Wilson. They also draw top-dollar for doing exhibitions and get appearance fees from tournaments, unusual for a doubles team.

One of the reasons the Bryans have done so well in the endorsement game is that their on court personas are so exciting, and they are so fan-friendly off-court. Both of these attributes, in many ways, can be traced back to the Jensens.

When they were younger, the Bryans loved watching the Jensen brothers. At one of the first US Opens they attended as kids, they saw the Jensens lose a match and stay after, despite the fact that it started to drizzle, until every fan who wanted an autograph had received one. The Bryans were so impressed that, to this day, they stay after every match, Jensen-like, to accommodate every fan’s autograph wish.

But the Jensens’ influence on the Bryans’ persona off court goes further than just autographs. The Bryans formed a band and play at player parties and tournament-sponsored events throughout the year, something the Jensens did. Like the Jensens, they are the go-to guys when tournaments need players to donate their time to give free clinics to kids. Even the chest bump, according to Wayne Bryan, can be traced directly back to watching and enjoying the Jensen brothers.

It's their high-energy personalities and their willingness to give back to the game, above and beyond the success they have had on the court, that has helped raise the stature of doubles, which is now experiencing a bit of a renaissance on the ATP Tour.

“To me they embody everything that is good about tennis,” says Jensen. “They play hard. They bring energy to everything they do. They make every meeting, every autograph; they do everything you are supposed to do as a professional tennis player.”