Mattek-Sands laughs her way to the top of the game

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla.—Bethanie Mattek-Sands is hard to miss. She’s got orange highlights in her hair, a bodyguard of a husband by her side and an electric laugh. That signature chortle may actually be the hardest to miss of all.

For years now, the 31-year-old has been known for not taking herself too seriously. She likes to pull on high knee socks and mix and match vibrant colors, often letting a splash of color creep into her light blond hair. Her right inner arm is a tattooed work of colorful floral art, and she’s known as the Lady Gaga of tennis, which is one mighty cool role to have.

These days, the American is even rocking a half-shaven hairdo (much like Eugenie Bouchard), but only the back of her head is buzzed.

Despite all the attention Bouchard got for her risky fashion move, Mattek-Sands was actually the first to rock the side-shaven ‘do a few years ago. Growing it out isn’t quite as spontaneous of a process as buzzing it off is.

“It actually looks pretty cool once it gets a little longer, “ Mattek-Sands said. “And then you clip it, so you do the slick and clip with the ponytail. There is a little awkward moment when it’s not quite in your ponytail, but you just clip it back and it's still a cool look.”

Her attitude and style are refreshing in a sport that’s often a little too serious. But don’t judge a book by its cover: Mattek-Sands is still a stone-cold killer on the doubles court. She has 18 doubles titles to her name, is ranked a career-high No. 3 and won two doubles Grand Slams last year (with the Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova). Oh, and she plays singles full-time, too.

Mattek-Sands and Safarova were the talk of the tour last year when they won the first two majors of the season and appeared to be on the road to a calendar-year Slam. Now they’re into the semifinals of the Miami Open, dabbling as selfie specialists as they go and going by the nickname #TeamBucie.

But earlier this month, Mattek-Sands picked up the Indian Wells crown with a new partner, fellow American CoCo Vandeweghe.

“Me and CoCo had a lot of fun," Mattek-Sands said. "I really like her… We both are pretty energetic. I’m normally the one that high fives people really hard, and she, I guess, is that partner on her team. So when we got together we were like, 'We need to to talk about this,' otherwise we won’t be able to play a couple points.”

Vandeweghe and Mattek-Sands laughed and extreme high-fived their way to the title in their first tournament playing together. One minor setback came when Vandeweghe’s mother, Tauna, accidentally calling Mattek-Sands “Britney” during their semifinal match. But that slip-up turned into Internet gold.

Speaking of gold, the pair has a real shot of playing the Olympics together if both are selected.

“I personally don’t know even how the selections work,” Mattek-Sands said. “I’ve never played the Olympics before. [Vandeweghe] and I obviously played to see how we’d do together. I feel like we’d be a great option for the Olympics, but it's kind of out of our hands.”

Vandeweghe’s mother was an Olympic swimmer, and Vandeweghe has said on multiple occasions that her biggest dream is to represent the U.S. Hopefully the Bethanie/Britney mishap doesn’t hinder the chances of this dream team coming together.

In any case, Mattek-Sands’ attention-grabbing way of life is making tennis, and doubles, more captivating than ever.