Adios Muguruza! Spaniard’s reign is over in a flash
DEFENDING champion Garbine Muguruza was last night floored by Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck to join a remarkable cull of the leading women’s seeds at Wimbledon.
Relegated to fifth on the schedule off the main show courts, Muguruza was beaten by the world No 47 with the light fading at just short of 9pm.
The 24 year-old Spaniard was only one of six from the top eight seeds to fail to make the third round. Only Simona Halep and Karolina Pliskova survive from that octet, with Caroline Wozniacki, Sloane Stephens, Elina Svitolina, Caroline Garcia and Petra Kvitova all having perished as well. The Williams sisters are poised.
This is the first time at Wimbledon in the 50 years of the Open era of tennis that only a quarter of the top eight women seeds have made the third round.
Van Uytvanck, 24, had only won one match previously at Wimbledon and is only on nodding terms with the second week at a Grand Slam, having reached the last eight of the French Open three weeks ago.
But she played all three weeks of the grass court season leading into this fortnight, picking up some useful wins here and there, while Muguruza was easing herself in after an arduous trip to the semi-finals of Roland Garros.
After three days when the women had taken precedence over the men in terms of being scheduled on the show courts, Muguruza found herself exiled onto Court 2, the fifth match on following an even more celebrated figure Novak Djokovic. It was odd scheduling for a defending champion.
She was bumped down so as to accommodate Jo Konta on the Centre Court, and found herself up against a resolute opponent with penetrating groundstrokes.
As the shadows grew long so did the confidence of Van Uytvanck, who kept finding the corners against an opponent struggling to keep her feet at times.
She had totally unravelled by the end, unable to match the forehand of her unheralded opponent. Muguruza continues to personify that bafflingly unpredictable nature of women’s tennis at present.