'Bryan Slam' is complete

LONDON -- The Bryan brothers got big air at Wimbledon on Saturday.

There was a little more room than usual between their feet and the ground for their latest version of the "Bryan Bump" -- the famed chest bump they use to celebrate their victories -- because of what that victory meant.

Their 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo wrapped up the Bryan Slam, making the 35-year-old identical twins from California the first men's doubles team in the history of Open-era tennis to hold all four major titles at the same time.

"It just feels like we're adding nuts and whipped cream and cherries to our great career," Bob Bryan said. "We said that a few years ago: If we retire today, we feel like we've done it all. Let's go have some fun and add to whatever this is."

They now have 15 Grand Slam tournament victories, improving on the record they broke at the Australian Open when they surpassed John Newcombe and Tony Roche as the winningest men's pairing of all time. It's their third Wimbledon title and the victory made the Bryans the first team to hold all the slams along with an Olympic gold medal.

If they win the U.S. Open in September, they'll join Ken McGregor and Frank Sedgman as the second men's team to complete a calendar Grand Slam. The Aussie duo did it in 1951, 17 years before the Open era began, and ended up winning seven titles in a row before the streak was snapped at the 1952 U.S. Open.

"I didn't think anything could feel as sweet as the gold medal, but this one just feels like there's a cap, a lid, or a ribbon around our career," Mike Bryan said. "It's pretty cool. It's something we never dreamed of, to try to win four in a row. It's too hard to dominate in doubles. Maybe we had a little luck involved along the way. We just took them one at a time. It just added up."

Taking Centre Court against a new doubles pairing of the Croatian, Dodig, and the Brazilian, Melo, the top-seeded Bryan brothers came out shaky. Lowlighted by a whiff on a volley attempt by Mike, they fell behind 5-0 on their way to losing the first set.

But they got a pair of breaks in the second to even things up, then got a break apiece in the next two sets for the win. The final one came when Mike Bryan, the right-hander, hit a forehand down the middle for a clean winner, then high-stepped it off the court to the sideline for one, final change of ends.

His brother served out the match and after match point -- a 129-mph ace -- the brothers jumped as high as they can remember while performing their chest bump.

It's a move they borrowed from the Jensen brothers -- the popular 1993 French Open champions who, like the Bryans, had their own rock band and liked to play to the crowd. They Bryans started using it regularly when they played college tennis at Stanford.

Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan of the United States celebrate with their trophies after beating Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Marcelo Melo of Brazil to win the men’s doubles final match at Wimbledon on Saturday. (Anja Niedringhaus ~ Associated Press)

"The fraternity guys were calling for it," Mike Bryan said. "I think it was on the cover of the Stanford Daily. ... They called it the `Bryan Bump.' We kept doing it."

They plan to keep doing it through at least 2016 at the Rio Olympics.

They have 91 overall titles and would like to make it 100.

They've finished first in the rankings for eight years and would like to make that 10.

More urgently, there's that issue of wrapping up the calendar Grand Slam.

The quest starts less than eight weeks from now in Flushing Meadows but they hardly wanted to talk about that after their latest big win.

"This is going to be a great one to kind of just celebrate and enjoy and really let sink in what we've done," Bob Bryan said.