Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul built on Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek’s Olympic silver medal in men’s tennis doubles, by beating Czech pair Tomas Machac and Adam Pavlasek 6-3, 6-4 for the bronze on Court Philippe-Chatrier at Roland Garros on Saturday afternoon.

Fritz and Paul, who fell to eventual gold medallists Matthew Ebden and John Peers of Australia in the semifinals, dominated Machac and Pavlasek throughout, winning the battle of three singles players and one doubles tour specialist comfortably. Fritz and Paul are both ranked inside the singles top 20, No 12 and No 13 respectively, while Machac is ranked world No 39.

Fritz served out the match with the combination of huge flat serves and tactically astute kick serves that saw him avoid facing a break point for the duration, with Paul broken in the first set.

Until, well, he didn’t. Sloppy errors and a double fault dragged the Americans back, first to deuce, and then to a first break point against the Fritz serve, which Fritz saved with a higher margin serve wide. Paul made a ridiculous pick-up to bring up a match point, the seventh, that the Czechs couldn’t save.

Machac and Pavlasek simply couldn’t live with the Americans’s bruising power, which Fritz in particular combined with guile and angles, complemented by Paul’s greater fluency at net.

Machac, who won gold in the mixed doubles with partner Katerina Siniakova on the previous night, looked sluggish in the opening set, as did Pavlasek, the world No 42 in doubles.

Fritz and Paul, seeded No 3 on the strength of their singles rankings, had played one match together all year in doubles before partnering at the Olympics. Paul does not even have a doubles ranking.

Now, they are bronze medallists.

More to follow.

(Top photo: Carl de Souza/AFP via Getty Images)