Credit One Bank Invitational: Mattek Sands commanding in Day 2 win

Day 2 of the Credit One Bank Invitational has concluded, featuring some stellar play until the event’s second rain delay. Here’s a breakdown of the day.

Day 2 of the Credit One Bank Invitational continued its stellar play from some of the WTA’s best. Unfortunately a few matches behind due to the rain delay from yesterday. Two of the matches that were scheduled for yesterday (Team Peace’s Collins vs Kindness’ Anisimova and Peace’s Tomljanovic vs Kindness’ Rogers).

Match #1: Amanda Anisimova (Team Kindness) def. Danielle Collins (Team Peace) 7-5, 6-4

Collins got off to a hot start yesterday, going up 4-1 in the first set before the rain hit. She would’ve fared better if she was able to continue her momentum. Unfortunately for her, she was forced to sit on her lead, which proved fatal. Anisimova won 6 of the next 7 games and took the first set 7-5.

Collins couldn’t regain her momentum, and while she kept it close, it wasn’t enough to keep up with Anisimova’s Day 2 surge.

Match #2: Ajla Tomljanovic (Team Peace) def. Shelby Rogers (Team Kindness) 6-1, 6-2

Tomljanovic simply outclassed Shelby Rogers in this match. Tomljanovic converted 4/7 break points, and while some games showed Rogers’ fight to stay in the match, it wasn’t enough to mount a comeback. Tamljanovic is one of the best young Americans and it certainly showed against Rogers in her first post-quarantine match.

Match #3: Bethanie-Mattek Sands (C) (Team Peace) def. Monica Puig (Team Kindness) 6-1, 6-3

Team Peace captain Bethanie-Mattek Sands took the court for the first time, although not in her preferred format (doubles). Ranked 359th in singles (compared to 20th in doubles), she was consistently impressive in her straight-sets victory over the 2016 Olympic Gold Medalist, Monica Puig.

Mattek Sands started off shaky and had to save four break points in the very first game before finally holding. She immediately broke Puig in the next game, who then broke back to make the match on serve at 2-1. This is where Sands turned it up. She won the next 4 games, converting 2/5 break points while losing only one point on her serve for the remainder of the 6-1 first set win.

The second set was slightly more competitive but Mattek Sands took it comfortably. 4 of the 9 games went into deuce in the second set and the American dual-threat came up clutch by winning 3 of them while breaking Puig 3 times in the process.

https://twitter.com/TennisChannel/status/1275977261741740038

Two more matches were to be played (Peace’s Brady vs Kindness’ Azarenka, Peace’s Dolehide vs Kindness Captain, Madison Keys) but another rain delay forced an early turn-in time for the event.

Team Peace currently leads Team Kindness 3-2. Peace’s roster is doesn’t have the depth of Kindness’, so it’s definitely surprising that they have the lead so far. Three of Peace’s top stars (Keys, Stephens, Azarenka) have yet to take the court, so we could see a shift in the leaderboard moving into Day 3, where matches are now worth two points.

Day 3 Match Schedule

Match #1 (Worth 1 point): Jennifer Brady (Team Peace) vs Victoria Azarenka (Team Kindness)

Match #2 (Worth 1 point): Bouchard/Collins (Team Peace) vs Stephens/Anisimova (Team Kindness) (Peace leads 6-4, 0-1)

Match #3 (1 point): Caroline Dolehide (Team Peace) vs (C) Madison Keys (Team Kindness)

Match #4 (2 points): Emma Navarro (Team Peace) vs Allison Riske (Team Kindness)

Match #5 (2 points): Leylah Fernandez (Team Peace) vs Eugenie Bouchard (Team Kindness)

Match #6 (2 points): Mattek Sands/Kenin (Team Peace) vs Azarenka/Keys (Team Kindness)

Match #7 (2 points): Ajla Tomljanovic (Team Peace) vs Monica Puig (Team Kindness)