Ghastly injury eclipses play
LONDON — The screams were startling.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands, a 32-year-old American who came to Wimbledon eyeing a fourth consecutive Grand Slam doubles title, fell to the grass when her right knee buckled as she moved toward the net in a second-round singles match Thursday.
She immediately clutched her knee and, down on the turf, wailed loudly, imploring, “Help me! Help me!”
Her opponent, Sorana Cirstea, immediately climbed over the net to check on MattekSands, who — after about 20 minutes — was removed from Court 17 on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.
“Her knee was in a very weird position. I’ve never seen anything like this, probably, except in the movies. And, yeah, I panicked a little bit, as well,” Cirstea said. “Then I called for help, but no one was coming. Then I tried to comfort her as much as I could. But, I mean, you could feel the pain.”
The extent of Mattek-Sands’ injury, which came in the third set’s opening game, was not immediately known. Word of her injury quickly spread around the grounds, generating concern among players. She’s popular on tour, known for her gregarious personality, loud laugh and original fashion choices, including the starsand-stripes knee-high socks she wore while teaming with Jack Sock to win a mixed-doubles gold medal for the U.S. at the Rio Olympics.
“It’s the peak of her career right now,” said Bob Bryan, whose twin brother Mike won the 2015 French Open mixeddoubles title with MattekSands. “She’s a fun-loving girl. She doesn’t have any enemies in the locker room.”
She’s also quite a doubles player, ranked No. 1 after teaming with Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic to win the past three major championships and a total of five. Safarova heard about Mattek-Sands on TV and ran to her court, then stood nearby and wiped away tears as she saw her friend and playing partner in distress.
“Just terrible what happened. Obviously, I’m very sad for her. Doesn’t matter about whatever goals we had,” Safarova said, her voice barely above a whisper, after losing her singles match to Shelby Rogers of the U.S. in three sets. “It’s just about her being healthy.”
There was no indication that the condition of the grass on the court had anything to do with Mattek-Sands’ fall, but playing surfaces around the All England Club were a source of complaints by others Thursday.
“The patch near the baseline is eaten up and the dirt underneath is like ice. Look around, people are going down left and right,” said Alison Riske of the U.S., whose 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory over 12th-seeded Kristina Mladenovic of France at Court 18 was one of a handful of upsets in the women’s draw, including No. 3 Karolina Pliskova’s 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 loss to Magdalena Rybarikova.
In the men’s draw, Roger Federer lost his first service game, but not much else after that, advancing to the third round by beating Dusan Lajovic 7-6 (0), 6-3, 6-2. Lajovic opened a 2-0 lead by breaking Federer in the second game on Centre Court. Federer broke right back and then dominated the tiebreaker.
Novak Djokovic advanced to the third round for the ninth consecutive year, beating Adam Pavlasek 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.