Garbine Muguruza won the Roland Garros women’s singles title, her maiden Grand Slam triumph, defeating top seed and defending champion Serena Williams in the final on Saturday.
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Garbine Muguruza wins her first Grand Slam Title by defeating Serena Williams in the 2016 French Open Final.
Muguruza is the first Spanish woman to reach the final at Roland Garros since Conchita Martinez finished runner-up to Mary Pierce in 2000 and she will aim to become the first Spanish victor of a Grand Slam title since Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in Paris in 1998.
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.
“I’m not one to ever make excuses and say, like, “Oh, my abductor was hurting” or whatever”, Williams said.
“She was really intense and really focused this tournament”, said Martinez.
“If she was indifferent about making history in her sport that would be a concern”, Mouratoglou said.
Her semi-final win over Kiki Bertens took her total match-wins at Roland Garros to 60 and she arrived on the back of a timely 70th career title on Rome’s clay. “I’ve grown up playing on clay, so for Spain and for me this is just wonderful”.
“The only thing I can do is just keep trying”, said Williams who was attempting to win a fourth French Open after 2002, 2013 and 2015.
Two year ago, she ignited a spark with her famous upset.
Garbine Muguruza carried over her brilliant play early into the second, breaking Williams in the opening game. She served at 61% in the first set and that dropped to 53% in the second, finishing at 49% for the match, her lowest of the tournament.
“I just tried to be calm even though inside I was like arggh there’s no way”, Muguruza said.
It showed up yet again in the closing game of the match, in which Muguruza served after being unable to get any of four match points in the previous game on Williams’ serve, a five-deuce mammoth of a game that showed Williams’ great, longstanding resolve.
“I think she has a bright future”, Williams said.
On a fifth match point, with Muguruza serving at 40-0, she struck the brilliant backhand lob that Williams thought would go long.
At age 34, Williams was bidding to earn her 22nd major championship and equal Steffi Graf’s Open-era record.
She will now turn her focus on Wimbledon where she will be the defending champion and a six-time former victor.
The breeze blew the back of Muguruza’s pale yellow skirt up a bit as she stepped up to serve for the set.
Muguruza took a 4-2 lead in the first set behind measured, aggressive tennis. Most importantly, she checks off all the boxes needed for rule the WTA.
That was evident as soon as she had the chance to lay into her opponent on Court Philippe Chatrier.
However, Muguruza played a nerveless service game to stay in the set and then clinched it with some wonderful hitting down both tram lines. Sanchez Vicario told Roland Garros staff, “She loves to play in the big arenas against the best players”.
Muguruza becomes just the second player born in the 1990s to win a major title behind Kvitova’s 2011 and 2014 Wimbledon victories.
After one hour and 43 minutes of pounding the cover off every Babolat tennis ball that came her way, leave it to Garbiñe Muguruza to cap off her stunning performance in Paris with the most unexpected of shots: a topspin lob victor.
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The Spaniard demonstrates the same sort of determination on a court that she observed in Williams and her sibling, hitting hard groundstrokes, aiming for lines, taking risks that bring real rewards.
