Bethanie Mattek-Sands is an American professional tennis player. She is an Olympic Gold medalist, has won nine Grand Slam titles – five in women’s doubles and four in mixed doubles, and is a former doubles world No 1.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands was born on March 23, 1985, in Rochester, Minnesota, United States. In 1999, she played her first WTA Tour event in Philadelphia where she received a wildcard into the qualifying.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands has won five singles and three doubles titles on the ITF Women’s Circuit, and her best results in singles on the WTA Tour are reaching the fourth round of two Grand Slam events (Wimbledon in 2008 and the French Open in 2013), the semifinals of the tournaments in Cincinnati in 2005 and Birmingham in 2008, and the final of the Bell Challenge in 2008 and 2010. She reached a career-high singles ranking of No 30 in the world on July 11, 2011. In women’s doubles, Bethanie Mattek-Sands has won 27 WTA Tour titles, including five Grand Slams at the 2015 Australian Open, 2015 French Open, 2016 US Open, 2017 Australian Open, and 2017 French Open, all with Czech partner Lucie Šafářová. The pair also were the runners-up of the 2016 WTA Finals. She became the world No 1 in doubles on January 9, 2017, and held the top ranking for a period of 32 consecutive weeks.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands has also found great success in mixed doubles. She won the 2012 Australian Open with and the 2015 French Open and a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Mattek-Sands suffered a major knee injury in 2017 that required surgery and a year off the tour to heal but eventually came back to win the 2018 and 2019 US Open mixed doubles titles, both with partner Jamie Murray. Mattek also played World TeamTennis for the Hartford FoxForce in 2000, the Sacramento Capitals in 2006, and the New York Sportimes in 2008.
In 2016, hacked documents from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) revealed that Bethanie Mattek-Sands had twice applied for a therapeutic use exemption for hydrocortisone and DHEA. Both times the request was granted by the International Tennis Federation before being revoked by WADA, but an application for exemption for hydrocortisone alone was eventually approved. Mattek-Sands has refused to comment on the exemption.