Sunday, April 19, 2009

Mattek-Sands and Petrova win Family Circle Cup



















In the first half of the first set of the doubles final in Charleston today, a lot of errors were made by both teams, but both teams managed to hold serve. Even serving at 3-4, 0-40, Nadia Petrova managed to hold serve. At that point, the quality of serving increased significantly among all four players, and the set went to a tiebreak, which Liga Dekmeijere and Patty Schnyder won on their first set point with a volley from Schnyder.

Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Petrova went up an early break in the second set, then held for 3-0. Down 0-3 and at deuce, Schnyder got her team on the board with a quality serve, then used a touch volley to get her team to 2-4. Mattek-Sands and Petrova were controlling most of the rallies, though, and they took the second set 6-2.

The super tiebreak appeared to be all about Dekmeijere and Schnyder, who went up 5-1 right away. But at 9-6, with the championship on their racquets, they watched Mattek-Sands and Petrova save three match points, then win the tiebreak 11-9.

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