{"id":71128,"date":"2025-05-03T12:25:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T12:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/71128\/"},"modified":"2025-05-03T12:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T12:25:08","slug":"madrid-open-star-collapsed-to-ground-after-being-hit-in-the-head-with-a-ball-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/71128\/","title":{"rendered":"Madrid Open star collapsed to ground after being hit in the head with a ball | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Madrid Open always brings drama. This year, we\u2019ve seen play cancelled due to a blackout<\/a>, while top players like Novak Djokovic<\/a> have suffered big upsets<\/a>. And it was no different in 2024, with plenty of stories throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n

Among some injury withdrawals and a farewell ceremony for Rafael Nadal<\/a>, there was concern in the women\u2019s doubles event when Bethanie Mattek-Sands fell to the ground after being hit in the head with a ball and had a frosty handshake with her opponent.<\/p>\n

The former world No. 1 continued her successful partnership Sofia Kenin in Madrid weeks after they lifted the Miami Open title. But they had a tough time in their opening match against Erin Routliffe and Ashlyn Krueger, with the match going down to the wire.<\/p>\n

Late in the second set, one of Routliffe\u2019s returns hit Mattek-Sands in the head, and she collapsed onto the court. The American was given an ice pack before seeing one of the medics.<\/p>\n

Mattek-Sands took a lengthy medical time out while a concussion check took place, but Routliffe didn\u2019t seem happy with how long her opponent had been given in the middle of the match.<\/p>\n

Play resumed and, after winning the first set in a tiebreak, Mattek-Sands and Kenin dropped the second set. The match went to a first-to-10-point breaker and the American duo came out on top, winning 7-6 5-7 [11-9].<\/p>\n

There was a frosty handshake between Mattek-Sands and Routliffe at the end of the first-round contest.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi doubles player had suffered defeat to Mattek-Sands and Kenin in the recent Miami Open final, where she partnered with Canadian star Gabriela Dabrowski.<\/p>\n

Mattek-Sands, a five-time women\u2019s doubles Grand Slam champion, and Kenin only got into the Miami doubles draw as alternates and went on to win the whole thing.<\/p>\n

However, their luck ran out in Madrid, as they lost in the second round to compatriots and No. 4 seeds Coco Gauff<\/a> and Taylor Townsend.<\/p>\n

So far in 2025, Mattek-Sands has played with various partners. She also revived her wildly successful partnership with Czech star Lucie Safarova, who retired in 2019 but recently returned to the tour.<\/p>\n

Nicknamed \u2018Team Bucie\u2019, the duo won five Grand Slam titles together in their heyday.<\/p>\n

They lost their opening matches in Abu Dhabi and Doha earlier this year but finally notched another win together in Charleston last month before going out in round two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Madrid Open always brings drama. This year, we\u2019ve seen play cancelled due to a blackout, while top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[35611,22484,79,1068,5838,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-71128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-bethanie-mattek-sands","9":"tag-madrid-open","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-tennis-news","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114443893188730134","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}