Spain’s Garbiñe Muguruza, the world No. 5, defeated Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky 7-5, 6-4 on Sunday to win the China Open, the second and biggest title of her career. Physically she came in after having to retire in the final of Wuhan to Venus Williams, a decision that she admitted left a bad taste in her mouth.
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Considering Muguruza’s solid form for the past few weeks, the head to head and their respective playing styles, I predict Muguruza will finally win a Premier level title.
The win was Muguruza’s first title of the season, second overall, and put a definitive stamp on a week that saw her become the fourth player to qualify for the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by South Carolina Global. In the 11th, Muguruza captured the break to bring things back her mark and set a tone to end the set.
In addition to clinching her spot at the WTA Finals this week, Muguruza will rise to No. 4 in the world and sit just one point behind Maria Sharapova in the rankings.
Hard to believe she would bounce back so quickly in Beijing to carve through the draw and into another final via two comebacks from a first-set deficit. He’s also just 2-8 against top-10 opponents this year. Other than breaking her rival’s serve on six events, she destroyed Lucic-Baroni’s first serve in the choosing set to proceed onward in style.
“My body is asking for rest, I haven’t recovered completely from my ankle, my body is exhausted and I have to get ready for the tournament of the year”, Muguruza told Efe. “This will be my first time there and I hope we will have a good result”.
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Like Muguruza, Bacsinszky will embark on new ranking territory next week in cracking the top ten for the first time, only the third non-naturalised Swiss to do so behind Martina Hingis and Patty Schnyder. I came from really, really far away, I nearly retired two years ago, and this man over there, my coach, Dimitri, thank you for helping me every day.
