Bethanie Mattek-Sands defeats Vera Dushevina in the opening round of the BNP Paribas Open
World number 43, Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States, won her match against the Russian, Vera Dushevina, in the first round of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, California on Wednesday night.
The American battled through a nasty stomach flu to defeat Dushevina in straight sets of 6-4, 6-4, taking one hour and thirty nine minutes of play. “I just got sick. I played in Dubai (in mid-February) and got sick there and when I came home, I was in bed
for a week and a half. I only had a couple of days of practice before I got here,” the American winner told press reporters in her post match reviews.
Mattek-Sands put up a great show of tennis at Indian Wells despite her illness. Although her serve statistics lacked something to be desired, her overall performance was quite satisfying. The American delivered 54 per cent of her serve on target, committing
four double faults and nabbed 30 out of 59 serve points in the game.
The American showed clear signs of fatigue in the second set but remained gritty to win the battle. Her Russian opponent assisted her victory by awarding plenty of unforced errors in the game, including six double faults. The return game of Mattek-Sands
proved to be the critical success factor for her in the contest as she collected 72 per cent of her second return points, with her opponent nabbing 56 per cent.
Dushevina had a positive start to the opener and broke her opponent’s serve in the very first game. The Russian got three break chances in the first set and she cashed in all of them. Mattek-Sands retaliated with good attacking moves, including frequent
raids to the net, converting a number of volleys into cross-court winners. She broke the Russian’s serve three times before taking the scores to 5-4. Her fourth serve break concluded the first set at 6-4, giving her a 1-0 lead in the contest.
The following set was almost a replication of the first one in terms of statistics, except Mattek-Sands avoided giving away any double faults in the set. Her serve percentage was almost unchanged in the second set, so was her points winning ratio.
The Russian broke early in the second set, only to be broken in the next game. Dushevina belted another serve break in the fifth game but her opponent gave her no room to lead the set. Mattek-Sands broke the rival’s serve three times in total and played
out past Dushevina to register a win at 6-4, making a place in the second round at the Paribas Open.
The 10th seed Shaher Peer of Israel is the next player Mattek-Sands will face in the second round. Peer directly entered the second round through a bye.
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