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| 02 Sep 2003 | |
| Mattek looks on the bright side as day two of US Open juniors is rained out |
By Eleanor Preston in New York
Bethanie Mattek should have spent Monday playing her first round match against India’s Tara Iyer but a day of persistent drizzle, punctuated with heavier downpours, left the 18-year-old from Minnesota kicking up her heels in the players’ lounge.
Instead of starting her Flushing Meadows campaign and making a welcome return to the junior circuit (her last major event at this level was at Wimbledon in 2001), Mattek was left to find other ways to fill her time.
“At Wimbledon there are crazy delays and at last year’s US Open too there were some delays so I guess it’s just something that comes with the territory,” said Mattek. “You have got to be able to deal with the rain, with the heat, with the wind, whatever the weather brings. Sometimes it seems like tennis attracts the rain. All week it’s beautiful and then suddenly, when play is about to start, all the clouds come in! In a way it’s harder when this happens before your first match but because I played main draw last week I feel like I’ve been here for a while already and got into the tournament. The first round is always one of the more difficult ones because you just want to get into it, you want to get a win and you’re not quite into the swing of things just yet. It is a little frustrating to be waiting around without having even played a match yet but what can you do?”
When catching up on her reading and chatting to friends began to wear thin, Mattek took part in a short photo session with police officers from the NYPD, who were only too glad to meet one of America’s rising tennis stars.
As fun it was for Mattek to meet New York’s finest, there’s no doubt that she would rather have been causing a stir on the tennis court. Currently making a transition from the junior to the senior circuit, Mattek has already notched up impressive results at challengers and ITF events and now wants to add the perfect full stop to her junior career.
“What I want to do this week is just focus on my game, deal with things that maybe didn’t go so well in the pros last week and try to get them going in the juniors. I can really get some good matches and good practice. For one thing I get another week playing in New York and being around the Grand Slam atmosphere so that’s very valuable, plus this is my last year playing juniors and I have never got past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, so let’s see if I can do better than that.”
Winning the US Open girls’ event is top of her list of things to do this week, but Mattek has plenty of other ambitions too. “I always wanted to be World No.1 but I have to say my biggest dream ever is to play a night match at the US Open,” she says. “I have dreamed of winning a night match from six games all in the third set against a top player. It wouldn’t be the same if it was an easy match. I think that would be awesome. I played there last year against Jennifer Capriati and got killed but it was an amazing experience. Having the New York atmosphere and being an American playing at the US Open at night is just the perfect place to play.”
Photos by Susan Mullane
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