Williams could not fashion a break point in the latter stages of the second set and did well to fend off four match points on her own serve in game nine.
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Muguruza won her first major singles title with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Williams.
PARIS (AP) The day before the French Open final, Serena Williams’ coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, was discussing whether his player would need to lift her level to beat Garbine Muguruza and collect a record-equaling 22nd Grand Slam title.
Garbine Muguruza defeated defending champion Serena Williams on Saturday in the French Open women’s title match. Williams, facing off against an opponent 12 years her junior and fighting an adductor injury, struggled with her movement.
“I am so excited to play the final of a Grand Slam against one of the best ever players”.
Under cloudy skies and in a damp atmosphere, Williams won the first point of the match as Muguruza sent a backhand long and held her serve at love.
Garbine Muguruza won her first Grand Slam Saturday at the French Open.
“I have grown up playing on clay”, Muguruza said during the trophy ceremony, “so for Spain, and for me, this is unbelievable”. They met in the 2015 Wimbledon final, which Williams won 6-4, 6-4. Trading massive blows from the baseline, Muguruza was able to respond to Williams’ power and even up it at times – her down-the-line forehand a stunning stroke.
“I was just like, ‘Come on, go for the match.’ I just said [to myself], ‘Garbiñe be calm, don’t get nervous.’ I practiced all my life for this so you know, that’s the moment”. At the end of the day I didn’t play the game I needed to play to win and she did.
However, Muguruza played a nerveless service game to stay in the set and then clinched it with some wonderful hitting down both tram lines.
The 22-year-old captured her first career major victory, winning 7-5, 6-4.
As she had at Wimbledon, Muguruza moved into a 4-2 lead in the opening set only for Williams to fight back.
“It has been very hard”, Williams said Friday.
Surely, part of the story of the 2016 French Open title match will be Serena-for the third major in a row-playing deep and failing to close in the final. But despite losing that game, she raced in to a 40-0 lead in the following game before an inch-perfect lob brought tears to the Spaniard’s eyes and huge cheers from the Roland Garros crowd.
As a British bonus, it will give that budding clay-court maestro Murray a distinction that eluded such stars as Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander and Boris Becker: He will have played in all the Grand Slam finals, having become the first British French Open finalist since Bunny Austin in 1937.
Williams will go back to the drawing board after she was unable to enter the history books once again, with Wimbledon getting underway in just over three weeks.
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Williams believes Muguruza, the first Spanish woman since Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in 1998 to win a Grand Slam, has the game to build further on her Roland Garros breakthrough.
