Bethanie Mattek-Sands has become one of my favorite US players to watch over the last year. Her unique style is enjoyable and she has a lot of toughness. It seems like when she gets drawn against the top players she’s ready to battle them and despite adversity in most of those matchups she’ll battle back and not go down without throwing a few punches.

We saw that toughness on Tuesday when Mattek-Sands took on Eugenie Bouchard. Down a break late in set one with Bouchard serving for the set at 4-5 Mattek-Sands broke back and then after holding serve to 6-5 she broke Bouchard again to snatch the first set 7-5. She then continue the strong play in set two as she blazed to a 7-5, 6-1 win over the young Canadian. Mattek-Sands was great on her first serve winning 74% of the points and attacked Bouchard’s second serve. Bouchard was serving just 42% on her first serve so there were numerous opportunities as Mattek-Sands won 64% of Bouchard’s second serve points. Mattek-Sands now faces Monica Niculescu in round two and is the higher seeded player. 

The Draws

This is the updated route for each American to the final if the higher seeds hold out. Yellow highlights the next matches for each player. For matches not yet held: green means favored, red means underdog. Bold indicates that match has been completed and the color corresponds to the result. Click to expand.

Venus Williams path got easier on Tuesday when Lucie Safarova upset #16 Kirsten Flipkens, though Williams has a tough task in Petra Kvitova up next.

Varvara Lepchenko was a 6-3, 6-4 loser to Kaia Kanepi on Tuesday to end her tournament in the first round.

Wednesday Schedule

• Approx 9 AM ET – Second Round – Bethanie Mattek-Sands vs. Monica Niculescu on Court 3 – Niculsecu leads 1-0 all-time
• Approx 9:30 AM ET – Second Round – #3 Petra Kvitova vs. Venus Williams on Centre Court – Kvitova leads 2-1 all-time