Bethanie MS rocking Madrid

Remembering her win over Francesca Schiavone in Australia a couple of months ago, Bethanie Mattek-Sands went on court ready for battle.

Both of them won their first games easily holding their serves. Bethanie showed her skills when she was 1-2 0-15 down when she won beautifully a point after making huge forehands, drop shots, and cross courts passing shots. This was just the beginning of a great match. As the commentator said “Mattek is a very watchable player”. You will never get bored watching her play and when she has her A game on like today it is more satisfying and fun to watch.

The first two break points for Bethanie came when they were even at 3 but Francesca didn’t let her consolidate. In the next game Schiavone won her service game to love leaving Bethanie to serve to stay in the match. The American is the kind of player that will give you from huge down the line shots to low perfect drop shots. That is exactly what she did today.

At 5-6 Bethanie held and pushed the set to a tie break. It was a different story there. She was keeping her game up while Francesca was pouring lots of unforced errors. Bethanie took a 5-2 lead that overwhelmed her. Although the Italian saved one set point with an awesome back volley it was not enough. Bethanie took the first set with a huge forehand winner. Even though she had 4 more UE than Schiavone what made the difference was the 17 to 7 winners difference.

In the second set they both held service in the first two games. For Francesca it was ups and downs throughout the entire first set and beginning of the second while Bethanie was enjoying her high dose of accuracy and aggressiveness. In the changeover MS asked for her coach. He came, high-fived her, said she was crashing every second serve from Francesca, pumped her up and left. That was everything she needed to hear, she was doing all the right things. She continued doing so during the rest of the second set. Immediately after that, Bethanie broke and had a 3-1 lead against the GS champion. She earned one match point at 5-2 but Francesca kept fighting and took it away from her. Then she served for the match at 5-3. She was on fire, she made some powerful serves, winners, drop shots, couple of “come on’s” and had the match.

She defeated Francesca 7-6 6-3 to extend her head-to-head to a 2-0 lead. First was in hard court and then on clay. This is the first time in her career she has beaten a top 5 player. Francesca being number four means a huge win for her.   

When you have a player like Francesca Schiavone on the other side of the court you have two options. One- staying in the rallies, playing safe points, waiting for your opponent to miss and then making your move. Or two- going for it and dominating. Option number two is the best suited for Bethanie. Although it was a very contested tied match, at the end the American prevailed. Not playing along Francesca’s game but playing her best tennis.

She will now face Li Na in the quarterfinals. If she continues playing like this, it will be very hard to stop her.

Good luck B!