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Who will rise in the all-American matchup of the third round between first seed Serena Williams and Bethanie Mattek-Sands? Join The Roar for live scores from around 9.00am (AEST) following the completion of Novak Djokovic and Andreas Seppi.
Williams is now well on her way to winning her seventh grand slam on home soil. A win would see her overtake fellow-American Chris Evert as the winner of the most Women’s singles titles in New York post-1967 and would put her equal with as the player with the most consecutive titles at the US Open.
Serena is however a long way off making her way into the history books, requiring a win over Bethanie Mattek-Sands to progress through to the fourth round against either fellow-American and 19th seed Madison Keys or Polish 15th seed Agnieszka Radwanska.
The match will prove tough for Williams, with Mattek-Sands expected to target her lack of defensive skills. The key target for Williams however, will be volley with her opponent struggling in recent years to return such shots, highlighted by her Wimbledon loss to Belinda Bencic.
In her past ten matches, Williams has a win-loss record of 9-1 and is seeded first due to her number one ranking on the WTA Tour. Her only loss came at the hands of Belinda Bencic in a three-set thriller during the semifinals of the Canadian Masters.
She is coming off a win in the second round over Dutch national Kiki Bertens 7-6, 6-3 and saw Vitalia Diatchenko go down injured with an automatic 6-0, 2-0 win due to retirement.
Mattek-Sands’ win-loss record in her last ten matches stands at 6-4 boosted by her victories over Kateryna Kozlova in the first round 6-4, 6-3 and fellow-American Coco Vandeweghe in the second round 6-2, 6-1. The girl with orange hair hailing from Minnesota is unseeded and ranked 101st.
Mattek-Sands is currently in her 13th US Open, the same number of appearances as Mardy Fish, and has flown under the radar in recent years due to her low profile.
This year all eyes will be on the 30-year old as she dons her new ‘electric melon’ ponytail with her matching skirt and shoelaces.
Mattek-Sands’ focus however will not be on her hair but rather her game with the fellow-American prepared to polish her weakness on volley shots and focus on cracking Williams’ defence.
A far cry from her hometown of Rochester, located on the Zumbro River in Minnesota, she could pull off one of the biggest upsets to date with a win over the tournament favourite.
Williams and Mattek-Sands have previously met on two occasions, with Serena winning both matches. The first was in Cincinnati during 2006 where Williams came away 6-3, 6-1. The next match was closer with the first seed winning 6-3, 6-3 in the round of 16 at the 2008 edition of Wimbledon.
Prediction
This time around the score will be closer, but the winner will remain the same.
Williams in three sets.
Join The Roar for live scores from around 9.00am (AEST) following the completion of Novak Djokovic and Andreas Seppi.
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