Muguruza’s tennis is all the fashion at SW19
Finalist dismisses WTA poll on the best-dressed female at the All England Club
WIMBLEDON— In what is a regrettable ploy, no doubt intended to rack up digital eyeballs, the Women’s Tennis Association is conducting an online poll to determine the best-dressed female player. Oy, let’s get sexist like it’s 1984. I mean, even if it wasn’t so puerile, everybody wears white at Wimbledon. (Except for that pink bra Venus Williams was ordered to take off.)
There’s only so much you can do with all-white.
Garbine Muguruza is on the short list. (A dash of daring red in that bodice zipper.)
The long-limbed 23-year-old was asked about that poll on Friday — the first query posed by hard-hitting tennis journalists at her eve-of-final press conference. Muguruza was taken aback. “What a question to start.” She hadn’t heard, didn’t have an opinion and doesn’t give a damn. “It’s not very important anyway.” What does matter is that the Venezuelan-born Spaniard is in her second SW 19 final — she lost here to Serena Williams in 2015 — and now must contend with five-time champion Venus Williams. Who, by the way, doesn’t do pre-final media confabs. Goddess-ness has its privileges. She’s probably too busy on the blower with her little sister, seeking tips for how to dispense with Muguruza, an opponent who beat her in the quarter-finals of the Rome Masters last month, though the American still holds a 3-1 edge in head-to-head play.
In Williams, V., Muguruza is coming up against two decades of Wimbledon history and seven Grand Slam triumphs. The tennis icon is also 37 years old, if not looking anything like it on the court over the past fortnight.
“It’s very impressive,” Muguruza said politely of Williams’ endurance. “Not everybody can do that. For me, it’s incredible. I don’t think I could be 37 and playing that level.”
The more pertinent fact is that no other female at this Wimbledon comes closer to replicating Williams’ powerful ground strokes and potent serve. The gangly Muguruza may not look it but she packs a wallop, having dropped the fewest number of games (39) in the tournament.
Outwardly demure, sweet even, the young woman is ferocious when it comes down to tennis business, a stalker, having put out World No. 1 Angelique Kerber in the fourth round and two-time grand slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarters. And she was the French Open winner last year over Williams, S., though she went into rather a tailspin after and was seeded a distant 14th here.
Earlier in the week, Muguruza admitted she didn’t know how she ever made it into that 2015 Wimbledon final with Serena.
“Well, you know, that final helped me a lot to figure out a way to play better on grass because before I was not very experienced,” she said yesterday. “It was a very surprising moment when you reach a final in a tournament where you thought it was going to be difficult.’’
What Muguruza doesn’t do is play a classically Spanish style. She’s extraordinarily aggressive and ballbanging, with a towering serve. Earlier in the year, she explained to a Spanish interviewer how she got this way. “I grew up and my body was not like a Spanish player’s. I was tall.’’ Six feet. “I had a powerful game and my arms were long. So I was, like, ‘No, you can’t play like most Spanish players do. You have to go for it, hit harder, kind of more Russian style. It works for me.”
Indeed it does. Though it helps having Conchita Martinez — the only Spanish female to have won the women’s singles trophy at Wimbledon, beating Martina Navratilova in 1994 — in her corner while regular coach Sam Sumyk is home with his expectant wife.
“I think I’m here because I’ve done hard work,” said Muguruza, apparently not liking the suggestion that Martinez deserves so much credit. “The magic doesn’t happen just because somebody comes in and all of a sudden you’re incredible. No.
“She’s helping me how to deal with the tournament because obviously it’s a grand slam and it’s difficult to handle because it’s two weeks. She has experience. But it’s the work that I’ve been doing with her here, and before with my previous team, everything together, it’s working.”
Venus Williams, of course, is a tall order, probably the sentimental choice for tennis fans as they’ve watched her rebound from chronic illness and personal tragedies — the drive-by murder of a half-sister, the car accident in Florida last month that resulted in an elderly man’s death (and for which police originally said Williams was to blame, though they’ve since retracted that statement). Plus, bittersweet, being eclipsed by little sister as a tennis phenomenon.
Muguruza is not a Venus sentimentalist. Claims she can scarcely recall, growing up, watching Venus play. “I might have seen a few moments maybe.”
Playing head games maybe, just in case a Williams was listening.