Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy avenged the defeat they suffered in last year's final by beating Bob and Mike Bryan in the men's doubles semi-finals at the US Open on Wednesday.
The fourth seeded Indo-Czech pair, which lost to the Bryan brothers 6-7(5), 6-7(10) in the title round last year, overcame a late charge by the No 1 seeds to emerge 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(8-6) in a 111-minute encounter on the Arthur Ashe court.
The Bryans looked like emerging triumphant this time too as they rallied from 0-5 down in the third set tie-breaker. But Paes and Dlouhy stayed cool and clinched victory on their sixth match-point.
Paes, who won the title in 2006 partnering Martin Damm, is entering the men's doubles final of the tournament for the fifth time.
In 1999, he and countryman Mahesh Bhupathi lost to Sebastien Lareau and Alex O'Brien, while in 2004 he and David Rikl were beaten by Daniel Nestor and Mark Knowles in the final.
Paes is also in the mixed doubles title with Zimbabwean Cara Black. The second seeds scored a 6-2, 3-6, 10-5 triumph over fifth seeds Su-Wei Hseih of Chinese Taipei and Kevin Ullyet of Zimbabwe in the semi-finals on Wednesday night.
The Indo-Zimbabwean pair will take on unseeded Americans Carly Gullickson and Travis Parrott, who upset top seeds Mahesh Bhupathi of India and Liezel Huber of the United States 6-3, 6-4 in the other semi-final.
As games went with serve in the opening set, the Indo-Czech pair saved a break-point on Paes's serve in the sixth game before breaking Mike's serve in the seventh. That sufficed for them to take the set in 29 minutes.
The Bryans took the second set in 27 minutes after breaking Paes's serve in the fourth game to set up a battle royal in the decider.
Dlouhy's serve was under threat in the first game of the third set but he did well to hold after saving three break-points. Games continued on serve before Paes's serve was under threat again in the seventh game. However, the Indian veteran, down 0-40, saved four break-points to hold.
The Indo-Czech pair were then on the threshold of victory as they held match-point at 5-4 on Bob's serve in the tenth game at 30-40, but the US pair fought back to level scores.
In the tie-breaker the scores ran 2-0, 3-0, 4-0, 5-0 in Paes and Dlouhy's favour, but the Bryans fought back to level at 6-6. But Paes and Dlouhy took the next two points to clinch the issue at 8-6.
