Leander Paes [Images] and Martin Damm played their hearts out and waged a grim battle for about two-and-a-half hours but could not avert defeat, their second in a row, against top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan in the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai on Tuesday.

The Bryan brothers quelled a late challenge from the Indo-Czech duo to win 6-2, 6-7(4), 7-6(5) after two hours and 25 minutes.

This was second straight defeat for Paes and Damm, who had gone down 6-7(6), 6-4, 3-6 in their first match to Australian Paul Hanley [Images] and Zimbabwe's Kevin Ullyett.

Paes and Damm could not settle into any rhythm in the first set as the Americans raced away.

Pushed to the corner, they put up stiff resistance in the second set and saved five break-points to force a tie-breaker, in which they held their nerves in crunch situations to win and force the decider.

In the third set, both pairs exchanged a break and it went down to the wire with another tie-breaker.

This time, the American siblings' experience stood them in good stead as they kept their cool to end up on the right side of the edge-of-the-seat thriller on centre-court.

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