This week, Maria Sharapova, Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan will be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. Look for special features throughout the lead-up on TENNIS.com:
All of tennis’ Hall of Famers share common ground when it comes to quantitative achievements. Certainly, some more than others, but each of these greats has generated an impressive series of results that have earned them enshrinement in Newport.
Where they differ is on the qualitative front. What is the major attribute that best defines a legend’s legacy? For Chris Evert and Stefanie Graf, it was steely-eyed concentration. For Martina Navratilova and Rod Laver, it was a wide array of tennis tools. For Jimmy Connors and Monica Seles, it was competitive intensity.
Then there are two 2025 International Tennis Hall of Fame inductees, Bob and Mike Bryan. While watching these twin brothers play their extraordinary brand of doubles, you come away dazzled by the unsurpassed choreography of their movements across the court. As the joke went, you could be playing with someone your whole life and you’d still have been partners nine months less than Mike and Bob.
“Even the very best doubles team in the world can never be as close as twin brothers in terms of understanding each other,” says Tom Gullikson, himself part of a doubles team of twins alongside his brother Tim.
“Brothers are one thing,” says Luke Jensen, who won Roland Garros in 1993 alongside his younger brother, Murphy. “But twins? That’s amazing.”
Bill Rapp, tournament director at the ATP tournament that was played in the San Francisco Bay Area until 2013, gave their brothers one of their first professional wild cards around the time they were leading Stanford to a pair of NCAA titles.
Says Rapp: “A good way to describe the way they played was elegant.”
Choreography. Understanding. Elegance. Based on these words, there was a musical quality to the way Bob and Mike moved around the court. This makes sense, as next to tennis, music was their biggest passion. Growing up, there was no TV in the Bryan family household. When they weren’t practicing tennis or studying, Bob and Mike were deeply devoted to music.