MASON - Friday’s doubles action set up several highly anticipated semifinal matches on Saturday as the world’s top three teams and four of the top six advanced in the 2009 Western & Southern Financial Group Masters.
 
Defending champions Bob & Mike Bryan moved closer to playing their fourth final in a row with a 6-4, 7-6(11) victory over the No. 7 seed Wesley Moodie & Dick Norman.
 
The Bryan brothers, who are ranked second in the world, staved off the well-rested Moodie and Norman through a grueling second set that lasted 51 minutes, including the 24-point tie-break.
 
Lukasz Kubot & Oliver Marach, the No. 6 team in the world, advanced with a 7-6(2), 6-1 win over Spaniards David Ferrer & Tommy Robredo. The match began with a tight first set that saw both teams hold serve before Kubot and Marach won the tie-break.
 
Kubot served three aces in a row to close out the match and set up a Saturday meeting with the Bryan brothers.
 
Third-ranked Mahesh Bhupathi & Mark Knowles notched a 7-6(6) 6-3 win over French duo Michael Llodra & Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
 
After a double fault in the second game of the first set, Bhupathi fired three aces to win the game. Llodra and Tsonga answered with seven aces of their own during the first set but couldn’t gain traction against the third-ranked team.
 
The No. 1 team of Daniel Nestor & Nenad Zimonjic faced off against Mariusz Fyrstenberg & Marcin Matkowski in the day’s longest match.
 
Nestor and Zimonjic, hot off their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 victory of the year in Montreal, won the first set in a tiebreak.
 
Despite six double faults, Frystenburg and Matkowski won the second set and forced a match-tiebreak.
 
In the end they couldn’t maintain the momentum, and the world’s top-ranked doubles team prevailed 6-7(6), 7-6(6), 10-4. They will face Nestor’s former partner Knowles & Bhupathi in Saturday’s first semifinal match.

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