American Turf

TATT’S NOT ALL WHITE!

The Daily Mail, it seems, has discovered Bethanie Mattek-Sands, and they’re determined to make the most of her.

The 30-year-old veteran, who is, as the paper puts it, “famed for her flamboyant style,” just can’t resist injecting a little color into Wimbledon’s all-white garden party. What scandalous acts has the American committed so far?

“Mattek Sands, 30, showed off a huge tattoo during her match!” screamed one Mail headline.

“The American also displayed a bright streak of pink hair!” blared another.

“It’s hard to be creative at Wimbledon,” admitted Mattek-Sands, a lover of leopard print, and any other type of print.

Watching the 158th-ranked Mattek-Sands upset seventh-seeded Ana Ivanovic 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday, I wasn’t sure how anyone could tell what colors her hair or her tatt were. To me, she was mostly just a white blur across the grass. A year after taking in Wimbledon on TV at home while recovering from hip surgery, she recorded one of the biggest wins of her career. And she did it her way, the old-school Wimbledon way, by charging forward whenever she had a chance—and even when she didn’t. Mattek-Sands, who came through the qualifying and has now won five matches in a week in London, was 29 of 38 at the net.

“I’m feeling great on the grass,” Mattek-Sands told ESPN afterward. “I’m playing well and just enjoying the moment.”

It’s a moment she may not have been sure would ever come again.

“I think the hip surgery and being out that long really gave me a perspective on playing and enjoying tennis,” she said today. “Last year I was watching all these matches in my house.”

We’ve heard it for years: You can’t play grass-court tennis at Wimbledon anymore. The surface is too slow, the bounce is too high, the players hit too big from the baseline. By taking the points to Ivanovic and playing suffocating tennis at the net, Mattek-Sands showed again why that’s not true, and she showed how it can still be done.

Her two-handed backhand volley might not be textbook, and she might lean a little too close to the net at times, but she has something more essential: The kind of fast, attacking footwork, and the mentality to make the most of it, that you don’t often see from full-time baseliners. Today Ivanovic tried hard to fire herself up in the second set, and she did start to play better, but she still didn’t stand a chance because Mattek-Sands had taken her out of her game. That’s what grass-court tennis all about. It’s no accident that Mattek-Sands is halfway to a calendar-year Grand Slam with doubles partner Lucie Safarova.

At the French Open, Mattek-Sands appeared in a supporting role during Safarova’s run to the singles final. It seemed to me that she and Safarova’s coach, Rob Steckley, had helped, in their free-spirited way, loosen Safarova up. Now Mattek-Sands seems to be benefitting from that attitude on the singles court, and she’s made herself a breath of fresh—and colorful—air so far at Wimbledon.

“I’m here to play my game,” Mattek-Sands said with a smile as she contemplated a third-round match against Swiss teen Belinda Bencic. “I play aggressive and that’s what I’m going to do going forward.”

If you strolled the grounds at Wimbledon on Wednesday, you might have come to the conclusion that the surface there was native to United States tennis clubs as well. Joining Mattek-Sands in the third round of the Ladies’ draw were five of her fellow Americans: Madison Keys, Sloane Stephens, Venus and Serena Williams, and, most surprising of all, 47th-ranked CoCo Vandeweghe.

Well, you and I may have been surprised by Vandeweghe’s win over 11th-ranked, and highly touted, Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, but she certainly wasn’t.

“She has the higher ranking,” said Vandeweghe, who has fired 25 aces in her first two matches this week, “but I had the confidence I’m the better player. I have more weapons. I thought I could out-rally her, and my serve is better than hers.”

She was right on all counts. Vandeweghe was broken just once, she won 84 percent of her first-serve points, and she hit more winners (32 to 20) and while committing fewer errors (21 to 24) than Pliskova. While Pliskova hits flat whenever possible, Vandeweghe gives her drives a little margin, without ever letting them get loopy. One of Vandeweghe’s two career titles came on grass, last year at s-‘Hertogenbosch, and you can see why: She’s not as consistent or quick as the top players, but she can slug with them.

She can also out-serve most of them. There’s been some talk at this event about how the serve doesn’t mean as much as it once did; it’s the return now that’s the determiner of excellence. All of that may be true, but you wouldn’t have wanted to mention it to Vandeweghe today. Serving for the match at 5-4 in the second, she pushed a tame, tight forehand into the net. Was she going to squander her chance? With her serve, she didn’t need to worry. She closed with two aces and a service winner.

Like Mattek-Sands, Vandeweghe enjoys a laugh, and today she enjoyed one at the expensive of her uncle Kiki’s old NBA team, the Knicks, and their star player, Carmelo Anthony.

“I just feel that Carmelo, he’s a bit soft,” Vandeweghe said. “I don’t think he has that killer look in his eyes, at least not this last year.”

“I just want one winning season,” she said of her perennially cellar-dwelling favorites.

Vandeweghe and her fellow U.S. women are off to a winning start at Wimbledon.