2011 Hopman Cup: Justine Henin topples Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the women’s singles final
The Belgian tennis ace Justine Henin got the better of Bethanie Mattek-Sands in two sets to give her country a one rubber lead in the final of the 2011 Hopman Cup on Saturday. The score line was 7-6 (8-6), 6-3. The clash concluded
in a time period of ninty nine minutes.
Henin, got to know on Friday evening that she will be representing her counrty in the finals of the Hopman Cup. The Belgian side reached the final after Serbia was forced to pull out due to Ana Ivanovic’s injury.
Therefore, after the match, Henin said, "I planned not to play tennis yesterday and I was in my room and they told me 'you will play the final tomorrow. It was strange because mentally I was really focused on leaving for Melbourne
on Sunday.”
Bethanie from the United States of America opened the final match on fire with the help of her strong ground strokes that made things complicated for the Belgian to handle. Henin, after taking some time however, did well to turn
things around for her and prevented a total of two set points in the opening set to seal it at 7-6. In the decisive set, Henin recovered from a break down to earn win in the end.
Both the players faced some problems with their serve during the start of the match. Henin, however, proved too strong for the American in the end.
Bethanie who is currently ranked number 58 in the South African Airways WTA list, started off the second set convincingly with a lead of 3-1, however, she couldn’t maintain it for long as the Belgian was not ready to give up, winning
eighteen of the last ninteen points of the match to register another victory to her name.
"I rested yesterday for my elbow and today I started a bit slowly but I thought Bethanie put a lot of pressure on my serve and I was not aggressive enough on my serve.Then in the second ... the last five games I was feeling more
aggressive,” reflected the former world number one.
In the men’s singles rubber final, John Isner from the United States of America will take on Ruben Bemelmans later in the day.
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