Venus Williams’ bid for one more gold medal in her storied Olympic career came up just short Sunday.
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In a win-win scenario for Team USA, Jack Sock and Bethanie Mattek-Sands edged fellow American duo Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram 7-6 (3), 6-1, 10-7 in the gold medal mixed doubles final Saturday afternoon at the Olympic Tennis Center in Rio de Janeiro.
The result capped off a successful, if not unusual, week of tennis for the Americans, who saw early losses for world No. 1 Serena, the 2012 London champion, and Venus in singles, as well as in doubles for the sisters, who were the two-time defending Olympic champions.
After Ram and Williams needed 55 minutes to take the first set in a tiebreak 7-6 (3), Sock and Sands grabbed all the momentum winning the second set 6-1 to force a 10 point match tie break.
It’s a second medal these Games for Sock, who paired with Steve Johnson for the bronze in men’s doubles earlier in the week, while Mattek-Sands won her first-ever Olympic medal.
Mattek-Sands and Sock answered with a spirited run of six straight points and all four players shared space on the podium.
“It was kind of a last-minute pack”, she said.
Ram, meanwhile, wasn’t even originally supposed to be in Rio.
The silver medal made up for a disappointing Games for the Williams sisters.
“With Serena, I expect to win I’ve got to be honest”, she said of her younger sister, with whom she won three of those golds. However, their American opponents responded and won six points on the bounce to go ahead.The team of Mattek-Sands and Sock then responded themselves by going on to win six points in a row including two on the Williams and Ram service game. “But we were saying, ‘Oh, you know, we don’t know what’s going to happen'”.
They played their best tennis at the right time.
The rest of the world will be watching Usain Bolt race for an historic third Olympic gold medal in the men’s 100m sprint.
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Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek of Czech Republic clinched bronze earlier Sunday.
