NEWS & NOTES
They haven’t played together in a year, but it’s official: “Team Bucie” is back. Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Lucie Safarova will team up at Wimbledon. Last year, the duo entered the grass-court event looking for their fourth major in a row but had to withdraw due to Mattek-Sands’ devastating knee injury. The five-time Grand Slam champions will try to capture the only major missing from their collection.
A LOOK AHEAD
Once again, both tours have two events on the schedule. At the ATP stop in Halle, Germany, top seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo will look to reverse their recent fortunes heading into Wimbledon, where they’re the defending champions. The second seeds are Nikola Mektic and Alexander Peya, while the third-seeded pairing of Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer are already out, falling in a match tiebreak to Alexander and Mischa Zverev.
In London, the other ATP stop this week, half of the quarterfinal lineup is already set, led by top seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic, and Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares, the number-four seeds. Henri Kontinen and John Peers, the second seeds, will face the veteran Daniel Nestor and his countryman Denis Shapovalov in the first round. An interesting observation around the draw is that Jack Sock and Mike Bryan are teaming up. It seems Mike decided to give it a go without his brother by his side after all.
On the WTA side, the draw in Birmingham, England, is deep: Top seeds Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic are through to the quarterfinals after defeating Miami Open champions Ashleigh Barty and CoCo Vandeweghe in the first round. Surprisingly, the second-seeded duo of Andrea Hlavackova and Barbora Strycova are already out, falling to singles standouts Daria Kasatkina and Garbine Muguruza.
