Bob and Mike Bryan, the Tennis Twins

This story was originally published on March 21, 2010. It was updated on Sept. 2, 2010.

"Labor Day" means one thing for tennis lovers in this country: the U.S. Open, a chance to see the likes of Federer, Nadal, Venus, Serena - the big stars fans have come to know by one name. But that's singles. What about doubles? For the past few years, doubles has also been dominated by players with one name, the Bryans.

Never heard of them? That's because doubles is often relegated to the side courts and is hardly ever televised. But as we first told you in March, the Bryan brothers want to change that.

Bob and Mike Bryan share more than the same mission and last name. They also share the same DNA. They're identical twins who share pretty much everything. Well you might say twins do that, but even in the strange parallel universe of identicals, the Bryan brothers are in a league of their own.

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Bob and Mike celebrate each victory the same way: they jump up towards each other and bump their chests. With over 62 professional titles, their chests may be getting sore, but they're not complaining: they just broke the all-time record for tennis doubles.

Asked if they are the best doubles player in the world, both shrugged in sync, and Mike replied "We like to think we are."

In fact, they do everything in sync. You get mesmerized watching, like when they're about to return a shot in a game, or on the sidelines between games, even while practicing, near their home north of Los Angeles.

"We complement each other really well. I mean, if you put us together, we're one really good..." Mike told "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl.

"…complete player. Yeah," Bob finished the sentence.

"When you're playing, do you realize how synchronized you are?" Stahl asked.

"It's freaky," Bob acknowledged. "We're bouncing in unison, in sync. And then we stop at the same time and we both just grab our racquets. It's nuts."

Bob is an inch taller, a little heavier and left handed; Mike's a righty. They're what's called "mirror identicals."

To analyze their game, we spoke to another pair of tennis brothers: John McEnroe, who was the best in the world in both singles and doubles, and his younger brother Patrick, captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team, that the Bryans have played on since 2003.

"The good news for them is that there's a leftie and a righty. And the leftie, Bob, is more of a big server, big hitter. And the righty is sort of better at strategy, better in the returns. And as my big bro knows, having a leftie and righty combination in doubles is pretty much ideal," Pat McEnroe explained.

"Their biggest thing is that they just know what each other's thinking, obviously. There're places on the court where people aren't sure who's going to take the ball, and they seem to do that naturally," John McEnroe added.

"Well, is it mental telepathy? I know a lot of the other players think they actually have that between them," Stahl remarked.

"I think they do, to be honest. It's very eerie sometimes," Pat replied.

Talking to Stahl after a practice session, still in identical clothes and shades Mike comments: "Yeah, it looks like we can read each other's minds."

Asked if he can, Bob said, "Sometimes."

"I know what you're thinkin'," Mike jokes.

But, seriously, what do they think is the main advantage to being twins?

"We're never gonna give up on each other. You know, other teams are worried if they play a bad match, 'Is the guy going to leave me and leave me out on the street?'" Bob explained. "And we're never going to do that."

And they never do: they never leave each other either on the court or off.

"When people look at us they say, 'Yeah, you know, they're a little off.' You know, how tight we are. You know, we're living in the same house. We're sharin' everything," Bob explained.

The Bryans are 31 years old. They share a house and a house - but they don't share toothbrushes.

"I mean, when we're a toothbrush down, we'll share," Mike hesitatingly adds. "On the road. I mean, that happens maybe a couple times a year."

That was news to Bob. Though there didn't seem to be any sharing questions that didn't get a yes answer: clothes, yes; breakfast, yes; credit cards, yes.

Even the money they win goes into one bank account. "It looks like more when it's...together," Mike joked.

"But do you then have to check each other if you wanna spend some money?" Stahl asked

"Biggest expenditures we do have to get the two thumbs up from the other twin," Bob explained.

"You guys are like married people," Stahl pointed out.

"Yeah, as of right now," Mike joked.

"This is going to come off so bad," Bob added. "We're going to look like aliens on this show."

Not quite aliens, but close encounters of the twin kind: they have been un-separated since birth. You can literally count on your fingers how many weeks they have spent apart their entire lives. They both have girlfriends, but they all live together in the same house.

In his free time Bob plays keyboard in a rock band. Guess who's on drums? Mike. The Bryan Boys Band even has a CD out called "Let It Rip." There's something "Peter Pan-ish" about the twins: unwilling, or unable to grow up. Stahl wondered if they still have fights.

"We do fight," Bob admitted.

"We have a few fist fights a year where we really…duke it out," Mike added. "And usually it comes during, like, a low moment after a tough loss when most teams would go their separate ways, we're sittin' on the plane together…and we'll start talkin' about the match, start playing the blame game. And all of a sudden, Bob'll nudge me…and the punches will get a little harder. And then…stuff will be flyin' around. And the stewardess will have to come and say, 'You guys okay?'"

Fear of losing leads to all sorts of odd behavior.

"It gets pretty extensive. We went to the same Chinese restaurant 21 straight nights. We were winning at the French Open. We thought it was the reason why we were winning," Mike told Stahl

"The food was sooo bad! I mean, it was terrible. We were the only guys in that place. And by the end we lost like 15 pounds because we weren't even eating," Bob added.

As is so often the case in tennis, to understand why players are so functional or dysfunctional, look no further than dad. Right after Stahl met Wayne Bryan, he forced a racket into her hand.

"Don't give me that diva thing. Come on - here we go - give me 20," Wayne Bryan told Stahl, instructing her to bounce the ball. "Talk is cheap! Show the camera."

His sons may be the stars, but as we discovered, it's Wayne's show. For years he was both "dad" and "coach."

"Did you guys choose tennis? Or did someone choose it for you?" Stahl asked the twins.

"Yeah, we were maybe kind of tricked into falling in love with the game," Mike acknowledged.

And both their parents were in on it: Wayne ran a racquet club with their mom, Kathy, who was a national tennis champion. The idea came to Wayne long before the twins were born, as he told his high school newspaper in 1965.

His prediction in the paper read, "My son will be the number one player in the world." He says: "I didn't know I was going to have twins or I would've said, 'My sons would be the number one doubles team in the world.'"

We all make predictions in high school, but Wayne Bryan made his the blueprint of his life. He acknowledged his boys are living out his master plan.

He had his sons chasing tennis balls when they were just two. By age six, they were winning tournaments. The twins played four hours of tennis every day; and an hour of music; and there was no television in the house.

"A lot of people listening to this are going to think you guys grew up in a boot camp," Stahl pointed out.

"I know," Bob agreed. "It's strange. Looking back we sacrificed a lot."

No sacrifice looms larger to them than the heartbreaking story of the videogame system. When they were ten, they were told that before they could get a Nintendo, they had to do daily chores for a whole year. Then when they got it, they were allowed to play on it just one hour a week.

"We didn't get much of it, so we wanted to play more. And we'd wake up really early when they're still asleep and you know, play before school. And one morning we could hear his footsteps down the hallway. And we're trying to turn it off really quick. Didn't get it off in time," Mike recalled.

Wayne ripped the machine from the wall and stomped out to the canyon behind their house.

"I had this big video, I pause a second, and I hurled it as high and as far as I could. It was going round and round, the wires were flying, then suddenly 'BAM,' it hit the bottom of the Branka, loud noise it kind of scared me, and amazed the little boys up there at the top of the cliff. They couldn't believe it. I actually can't believe I did it myself, but I'm glad I did," Wayne told Stahl at the edge of the canyon.

"We did some recovery missions where we went down there and tried to, like, piece it together. The system was done," Bob said.

"It was a very kind of a traumatic experience," Mike added.

They're making up for lost time now, playing videogames on stationary and remote devices both at home and on the road. Still, Wayne's plan did work, and he wrote a how-to book, "Raising Your Child To Be A Champion." But a couple of years after these champions turned pro they weren't winning, so they fired coach dad.

"It wasn't an easy thing to do," Mike recalled. "And we won our first tournament without my dad."

"And it was actually the first tournament we ever won on the tour," Bob said.

This wasn't the only time the Bryan boys had to weigh family against career. Bob was doing pretty well playing singles, but Mike was falling behind, and so was their doubles game. So, in 2001 Mike asked Bob to give up his singles career and focus only on doubles.

"We wanted to be number one. And we wanted to play together. We love playing doubles," Mike said.

Asked if he felt like he was holding back Bob from potentially becoming a major singles player, Mike said, "He had a shot. It would've taken a few more years. But I didn't have that time."

"He didn't want to wait. He didn't have that kind of time," Bob added. "For the first couple years, you know, I had some second thoughts, you know, some regrets. But now that I look back on the whole, the whole body of work, you know, I love our choice."

And it's an impressive body of work: the brothers have won seven Grand Slams, including Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Davis Cup.

Since 1998 they've won over $14 million in prize money. But per match, they often make one fifth what a top singles player makes. To understand why, just look at the stands when they play: they're largely empty. Doubles is no singles, as you can also tell when they're whisked after a major victory to meet the eager press: sometimes the press room is empty. And, remember, these two are the Michael Jordans of their sport.

"Doubles is on life-support in a sense. And if it wasn't for the Bryans, it'd be in even worse shape," John McEnroe explained. "But the argument is with doubles guys, they're always saying, 'Oh, you know, people love to watch doubles.' You hear people really? If people love to watch it, how come there's no one in the stands?"

In 2005, some tournament directors actually tried to put an end to the doubles tour.

"It was scary. There were some rules that were being passed, basically to eliminate the doubles player," Bob recalled. "And we kind of spearheaded a campaign to bring doubles back."

They sued the Association of Tennis Professionals and forced it to back down, double-handedly saving the game. Last month they became the best doubles players in history. But getting there hasn't been easy.

But the closer they get, the greater the pressure. At a big match last year, just before they started playing, Bob was galloping in place with tension and worry as Mike's nerves got the better of him and he started vomiting courtside.

This was right before their biggest contest of the year, the finals at a tournament in London. It was a tough match but they managed to eke it out and win, again, holding onto their number one ranking.

They hugged each other after the victory. And then they celebrated by doing something they almost never do: they spent time apart.

"It's just recently we started splittin' up a little bit, you know," Bob said.

Asked how they're doing, Bob told Stahl, "We're doin' great. We're doin' great…We're hanging in there. We're starting to untangle as we speak."

"The toothbrush we broke in half. I get the bristles, and he gets the…," Bob joked.

They told us they do want to get married. But they're not ready. Not yet.

"When one of us gets married then we'll have to do some work," Bob told Stahl.
"Yeah. But I'll have to get the okay on how much my ring's going to cost," Mike said.

"Yeah! You better get a cheap ring, dude. Cubic zirconium or whatever it's called," Bob joked.

Produced by Shachar Bar-On