Bethanie Mattek-Sands: Keeping a schedule has helped me through this phase

• Tennis News
• American Tennis

Former World No. 1 in doubles Bethanie Mattek-Sands says keeping a schedule has helped her during the current lockdown, while speaking to CNBC. The 35 year old Mattek-Sands is an Olympic Gold medallist, and has won nine Grand Slam titles, five in women's doubles and four in mixed doubles.

“One of the things that has helped me through this phase is keeping a schedule. Even though I know I can work out at any point in my day, I set a time that I want to get this workout in by. I set times when I’m waking up and having breakfast.

Finding a few things you can stick to in your daily routine is helpful when there’s a lot of uncertainty and your scheduling is really off”. The American says she has access to a private court and is using the current time to work on some technical changes in her game.

“Now is a perfect opportunity to invest in some changes. Usually tennis players never have this amount of time, so it’s fun to test things out. If you fail or if it’s not the right change, you go back. You have time”.

The American also says that she is among the fortunate ones to not be worried about financial security at this point due to her past success on the tour (more than $7 million in career prize money) “Tennis is not a contract sport and we really rely on the WTA and ATP tours to be up and running so players can earn prize money to make a living.

Right now, that’s on hold. You have a lot of players that are not sure what they’re going to do”. "There are opportunities out there. We can do a lot of different things as athletes — we can speak, we can mentor, we can coach. First, relax and breathe. And know that there are options”.