Garbine Muguruza beat Serena Williams to win her first Grand Slam title at the French Open on Saturday, and when the dust-or more accurately, clay-settles, her attention will be focused on Wimbledon.
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Since then she continued to go from strength to strength, rapidly rising up the rankings, reaching her first grand slam final at Wimbledon and winning what was to that point her biggest career title in Beijing, all past year.
USA player Serena Williams serves the ball to Spain’s Garbine Muguruza during their women’s final match at the Roland Garros 2016 French Tennis Open in Paris on June 4, 2016. Williams has now lost back to back Grand Slam Finals for the first time in her career, while Murguruza becomes the first Spanish woman to hoist the Suzanne Lenglen Trophy since Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in 1998..
“She has a bright future, obviously”, said Williams, who at 34 is 12 years older than her Spanish opponent. Muguruza is by far the youngest current Grand Slam victor, with Petra Kvitova (at 26) being the second youngest.
“I can’t explain with words what this day means to me”, Muguruza said during the awarding ceremony.
Williams had more difficulty putting shots right where she wanted, an unusual sight. “I like to play against the best players”, she said.
She may also draw hope from the fact that Williams could be suffering from a groin problem.
But she unleashed another forehand down the line to regain the advantage and held for 3-1.
She had four match points on Williams’s serve, which the American saved, but Muguruza ended the contest on her fifth attempt with a lob that landed on the baseline.
Williams held all four slam singles crowns after beating Muguruza in last year’s Wimbledon final. The momentum garnered by the Muguruza was able to carry her to a 5-3 lead.
Serena Williams is closing in on her 35th birthday and has just suffered back-to-back Grand Slam final losses for the first time, but the American superstar is not ready to be dethroned any time soon.
When Muguruza smacked a backhand victor on her third set point, she was one set from the championship.
“You know what I thought?”
Billie Jean King heralded Garbine Muguruza’s French Open victory as a changing of the guard in women’s tennis. “This is the tournament in Spain, being on clay, Rafa is the champion and to win here is the best”.
An ugly double fault, however, earned Muguruza the first break of the match, which she consolidated by holding serve in the sixth game with a flat forehand victor down the line to lead 4-2.
“When you’re able to finish the way she finished in the last game, it’s a second reason to say that she deserves it”. Despite the French loss, which some see as indicative of her inevitable decline, Williams had little trouble marching to the French final – and she could have won, too, with a few breaks going her way.
It is just a matter of trying to get more consistency into her game and avoid form slumps like the one she underwent earlier this year.
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Muguruza’s second break of the final allowed her to serve for the set and she duly managed that staving off two break-back points along the way.
