‘Young’ Muguruza flattens Venus
WIMBLEDON 14 years younger than Venus Williams, Garbine Muguruza wins 75, 60 to lift her maiden title at SW19
After struggling with the burden of winning her first Grand Slam singles title, Garbiñe Muguruza now must cope with the reality of winning a second. She triumphed at Wimbledon on Saturday by defeating five-time champion Venus Williams 7-5, 6-0.
At 23, Muguruza is 14 years younger than Williams, the U.S. star who was playing in her first Wimbledon singles final since 2009. But Muguruza is Williams’ stylistic acolyte: a big-serving, flat-hitting power player who is happiest on a tennis court when she is most aggressive.
Now, she is the first Spanish woman to win the Wimbledon singles title since Conchita Martínez in 1994. Martínez, the Spanish Fed Cup captain, also played a role in this victory by helping to coach Muguruza in the absence of her regular coach, Sam Sumyk, who missed Wimbledon to be with his wife, former player Meilen Tu, during her pregnancy.
Sumyk and Martínez consulted regularly during the tournament, but Martínez was the one sitting in the players box on Centre Court on Saturday.
The match turned with Muguruza serving at 4-5 in the first set. Williams had two set points but could not convert them.
In the next game, Muguruza earned the first break of serve in the match to go ahead 6-5 and then closed out the set.
Muguruza rolled from there. She broke Williams again to open the second set, and Williams’ errors began to pile up. Muguruza won the final nine games of the match.
Muguruza lost to Venus Williams’ younger sister Serena Williams in the 2015 Wimbledon final, then upset Serena Williams in last year’s French Open final, generating expectations that she would continue to climb the rankings and be a consistent contender for major trophies.
Instead, she went into an extended slump, failing to reach another final at any tournament until her run at Wimbledon this year. She is now a two-time Grand Slam singles champion and will be back at No. 5 in the WTA rankings on Monday.
Venus Williams will be back in the top 10 at No. 9 and is in the midst of the strongest season of her late-career phase.
She lost the Australian Open final in January to her sister. Serena Williams was pregnant with her first child when she won that final and has not played competitively since. But she and Venus have been in regular contact during Wimbledon, and Serena, a seven-time singles champion here, offered encouragement and tactical advice before the match against Muguruza.
But after defeating six younger women at the All England Club this year, Venus Williams could not get past the seventh.
Her performance here was, nonetheless, one of the most remarkable of her long career. She last won a Wimbledon singles title in 2008, and three years later she announced that she had Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder.
The condition sapped her energy and forced her to alter her diet and curtail her training.
But it did not curtail her desire to continue competing at the highest level, even when she failed to advance past the fourth round at any major tournament in 2011, 2012, 2013 or 2014.