Garbine Muguruza Wins First Grand Slam
Garbiñe Muguruza upset Serena Williams at Roland Garros on Saturday to win her first grand slam title and deny the American what would have been a record-tying 22nd grand slam title.
Nadal’s withdrawal through injury after two rounds here had sent many a Spanish fan into a tailspin but Muguruza more than made up for it with a brilliant 7-5, 6-4 victory over the world No 1 Serena Williams, a performance that suggests she may yet go on to win many more grand slam crowns. Since then, though, Williams lost to Roberta Vinci in the semifinals of the U.S. Open, where Flavia Pennetta wound up with her first major championship (and last, because she then announced her retirement); to Angelique Kerber in the Australian Open final, and now to Muguruza.
While it did help her to win 30 of her next 31 major matches to complete a second “Serena Slam” at last year’s Wimbledon, where she beat Muguruza in the final, the lessons were not enough to carry her over the finishing line on Saturday.
Muguruza held four match points while leading 5-3 as Williams served.
And when it was time for Muguruza to rise from her seat and march to the service line to serve for her first Grand Slam title, the Spaniard didn’t flinch.
I can’t explain with words what this day means to me. “We were like: “Oh, Roland Garros will not be the same.’ I said to my coach: ‘Federer and Nadal are not here”. She said she had not even thought about Wimbledon, which starts a fortnight later.
“For Spanish people, this is the tournament”, Muguruza said.
“I have grown up playing on clay”, Muguruza said during the trophy ceremony, “so for Spain, and for me, this is unbelievable”. “She knows how to play on the big stage and… clearly, she knows how to win Grand Slams”. Muguruza is by far the youngest current Grand Slam victor, with Petra Kvitova (at 26) being the second youngest.
Williams dug deep to get back to 3-2 sparking a scream of defiance from a player who had been in 26 Grand Slam finals dating back to 1999 - losing just five of them.
Williams actually posted better numbers in winners and unforced errors, compiling 23 winners and 22 unforced errors to Muguruza’s 18 and 25. In all, Muguruza broke Serena four times, earning 10 break points in the match. Muguruza could have played the set point with safety and care, but she refused.
Muguruza also managed to deal with Williams’ risky serve, breaking three consecutive times from late in the first set to early in the second.
But, revealing a fragility few had anticipated, she fell short there and did so again in the finals of the two subsequent majors, most recently against Spaniard Garbine Muguruza in Paris on Saturday. Serena knows it’s in, but it takes a second for Muguruza to look to her box to realize she’s just won the French Open before crumpling to the court.
An unreturnable crosscourt forehand gave Muguruza another break.
Muguruza has a history of leaving Williams feeling ill at ease in Paris as the Spaniard is the only woman to have beaten the American there since 2012.
“It was very tough at the beginning of the year for Garbine, dealing with the mental side”, Conchita Martinez, Spain’s Fed Cup captain, said.
“I don’t think that there is any particular advantage to my side”. I thought about it at that moment, “Oh it would be nice to see it again”.
“She deserved to win”, said Mouratoglou.
It will take a lot for Muguruza to ever find genuine consistency, and it isn’t a likely event.
To finish off, congratulations to Garbine Muguruza, the 2016 French Open champion, and may this be the first of many major titles going forward.
Reflecting on her last two losses in major finals this year, Serena dismissed any implication that she’s succumbed to the pressure of chasing No. 22.