Mattek-Sands previews U.S. Open championship weekend

Bethanie Mattek-Sands has spent her career in the doubles arena, a place where precision, timing, and partnership determine everything. Over the course of her playing life, she has won nine Grand Slam titles in doubles—a record of sustained excellence across the sport's biggest stages. Now, as the U.S. Open reaches its final weekend, she sits down to walk through what's about to unfold on the courts at Flushing Meadows.

The championship weekend of a Grand Slam tournament is tennis distilled to its essence. The singles and doubles finals represent the culmination of two weeks of competition, where the field has been narrowed to the last two competitors in each draw. For viewers, it's the moment when the year's narrative arc completes itself—when the player who has navigated the draw, survived the pressure, and outlasted everyone else gets to claim the title. For someone like Mattek-Sands, who has lived inside that pressure herself, the vantage point is different. She understands not just what the players are doing, but why they're doing it, what they're feeling, and what separates the finalists from everyone else who came to New York.

Mattek-Sands' expertise comes from the doubles side of the draw, where she accumulated her nine major championships. Doubles tennis operates under different rules and rhythms than singles—the court is wider, the points are often shorter, the margin for error smaller. A player who has won at that level has learned to read the court in real time, to anticipate where the ball is going before it gets there, to understand how two players can move as a single unit. That knowledge translates into insight about the entire tournament, because even singles players must understand doubles strategy, must know how to approach the net, must grasp the geometry of the court.

As the U.S. Open enters its final stage, the remaining competitors are the ones who have played the most consistent tennis over fourteen days. They've navigated early rounds against unfamiliar opponents, survived the middle rounds against seeded players, and reached the finals by winning the matches that mattered most. The singles draw will crown a champion in both the men's and women's competitions. The doubles draws—men's, women's, and mixed—will do the same. Each final tells a different story about what it takes to win at this level.

Mattek-Sands' role in this moment is to translate that experience for viewers who may not have spent years inside professional tennis. She can explain what the finalists are attempting tactically, what pressure they're under, what their opponents' strengths are and how they might be exploited or defended against. She can speak to the mental side of reaching a Grand Slam final—the weight of it, the opportunity, the knowledge that you're one match away from holding a major title. She's been there. She knows what it feels like to stand on that court when everything is on the line.

The U.S. Open championship weekend is when casual viewers and devoted fans alike tune in to watch tennis at its highest level. The tournament has been building toward this moment since the first Monday, when hundreds of players arrived in New York with the hope of winning. By Saturday and Sunday, only a handful remain. Mattek-Sands will help audiences understand not just who is playing and what the score is, but why these matches matter, what makes these players different, and what it takes to win when the stakes are highest.