Breaking Down the Australian Open Doubles Draws

Whew! Can it be any tougher for the Bryan Brothers at the Australian Open? First off the bat, they face the Israeli pair of Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, which only happens to be the team that won the whole shebang as recently as 2008!

On the women’s side, you can also look at a high-ranked American squad with a potentially tough first-rounder: No. 2 seeds Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond go against another former Grand Slam champ in Anabel Medina Garrigues and her partner, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

That aside, here are my picks from the quarterfinals on for both draws:

For the men:

QUARTERFINALS

Bob Bryan/Mike Bryan (1) vs. Colin Fleming/Ross Hutchins (15)

Scott Lipsky/Rajeev Ram (13) vs. Robert Lindstedt/Horia Tecau (7)

Aisam-Ul-Haq Quereshi/Jean-Julen Rojer (8) vs. Michael Llodra/Nenad Zimonjic (3)

Jurgen Melzer/Philipp Petzschner (5) vs. Max Mirnyi/Daniel Nestor (2)

SEMIFINALS

Bryan/Bryan vs. Lindsted/Tecau; Llodra/Zimonjic vs. Mirnyi Nestor

FINALS

Bryan/Bryan over Mirnyi/Nestor

For the women

QUARTERFINALS

Kveta Peschke/Katarina Srebotnik (1) vs. Sara Errani/Roberta Vinci (11)

Vania King/Yaroslava Shvedova (3) vs. Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka (7)

Natalie Grandin/Vladimira Uhlirova (9) vs. Svetlana Kuznetsova/Vera Zvonareva

Sania Mirza/Elena Vesnina (6) vs. Huber/Raymond (2)

SEMIFINALS

Peschke/Srebotnik vs. King/Shvedova

Kuznetsova/Zvonareva vs. Huber/Raymond

FINALS

Huber/Raymond over Peschke/Srebotnik

(Photos: Getty Images)