Australian Open 2012 live stream

Aussie greats Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge were appropriately inducted into the Australian Tennis Hall of Fame this week, but while the two-time Australian Open champions were discussing their career highlights, the Bryan twins were out on court, trying to achieve their ultimate goal: trying to pass the Woodies’ all-time mark of 61 doubles titles.

“We have 56 and are just five away,” said Mike Bryan. “But that’s a lot of Sundays. We’d love to win another title here in Australia and get the year off to a great start.”

After winning a third-set tiebreaker over fellow Americans Rajeev Ram and Eric Butorac on Tuesday, the top-seeded Bryans are into the semi-finals, where they will face Germany’s Michael Kohlmann and Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen.

While the Woodies are still a step ahead of the 30-year-old twins in the record books, the Bryans have to be put right up there with them for their consistency, for their standout play in Davis Cup (they have most doubles wins as a team in US Davis Cup history and own a 16-2 record), and for the fact that they’ve won majors on all four surfaces. In 2009, the Bryans captured their second Australian Open crown, and also won the 2005 and 2008 US Opens, 2006 Wimbledon and 2003 French Open.

The Woodies certainly shone at the majors, winning a record six Wimbledons, two Australian Opens, two US Opens and a French Open, as well as a Davis Cup win for Australia in 1999 and the Olympic gold in Athens in 1996. But the Bryans believe they are still climbing the charts, and they see further glory ahead.

“I definitely think we are improving,” said the left-handed Bob. “I think we have a coach [David Macpherson] that's as good as anyone in the world. Maybe the best doubles coach in the world. He works incredibly hard studying doubles, watching every team. He has a notebook thick with ideas. Mike's serve has improved in the last three years a lot. My returns have improved. For that to happen in big moments shows confidence in our games, and the holes are closing up.”

The Bryans had a dramatic end to last season when for the fifth time, they ended the year as the world’s top team by winning the ATP Tour Doubles Finals at the O2 Arena in London. They came into the tournament down over 800 points behind No. 1 team of Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, the same pairing that had taken them down in a winner-take-all final for the year-end No. 1 last year in Shanghai. Even though they opened the round-robin competition with a defeat to Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram, the brothers responded every other time out.

They got over the French and US Open champions Lukas Dlouhy and Leander Paes 6-3 6-4, bested Lucasz Kubot and Oliver Marach 6-3 6-4, took a 6-4 6-4 win over the veteran duo of Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles. Then, in the final, they had to face Mirnyi and Ram again, a team that had beaten them on three successive occasions. But they bullied their way to a 7-6 6-3 victory.

"It means so much," said Bob. "It's pretty much what we play for now. That's the goal. Play well in the Slams, but the ultimate goal is to finish No.1. It was a trying year. We had a lot of disappointments. We had times in the year where we played unreal. But we had a lot of times almost in tears in the locker-room after some big disappointments. Luckily we stayed solid. Even in those dark, dark hours we were making finals, making semis. We were kind of trudging ahead, staying in contention.”

Hugely popular in America, the Bryans had almost no off-season. They went right from London to playing exhibitions, competing all the way until December 17.

“We played 11 exhibitions in 14 days then went into a coma until New Year’s,” the right-handed Mike said. “We just woke up a couple of days ago. We learned our lesson. We went into Auckland a little frazzled, a little burned out. We keep thinking exhibitions are easy, with no pressure, but they are not. It’s pretty much all day with the activities and sponsor visits and then the night matches. We sign the deals before we are tapped at the end of the year, and then it gets to that time it’s “Oh no!” At our age we have to scale our schedule back a bit. But we don’t leave a dime on the table.”

If the Bryans manage win their third Australian Open, they’ll only be four major titles behind the Woodies. But even if they grab the record-breaking No. 62 doubles title this year, their thoughts will still be with their high-achieving mates from Down Under.

“It's in our sights now,” Bob said. “To be even considered in the same sentence with the Woodies makes us proud. Those guys are our idols. I assume if we stay healthy, it's gonna happen someday. Definitely want to honor those guys. That's the standard of doubles. Those guys were the best players ever.”