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.
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 one of six from the top eight seeds to fail to make the third round. Only Simona Halep and Karolina Pliskova survive from that list, with Caroline Wozniacki, Sloane Stephens, Elina Svitolina, Caroline Garcia and Petra Kvitova all having perished. 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 won once previously at Wimbledon and is only on nodding terms with the second week at a Grand Slam, having reached the last eight of this year’s french Open.
But she played all three weeks of the grass-court season leading into this fortnight, picking up useful wins here and there, while Muguruza was easing herself in after an arduous trip to the semi-finals of Roland Garros.
Muguruza found herself exiled on Court 2. It was odd scheduling for a defending champion, and she was 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. Muguruza struggled to keep her feet at times and had totally unravelled by the end, unable to match Van Uytvanck’s forehand.
By her body language afterwards, Muguruza was clearly not happy with the way she had been scheduled, but she just about restrained herself.
‘There’s nothing I can do. I mean, that’s what they decided,’ she said. ‘I follow the schedule. I wanted to play in bigger courts. It’s always my preference. But to say something now makes no sense.
‘I’ve played on this court a lot of times. I have no problem to walk through the people.’
Van Uytvanck now faces Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit in a draw looking surprisingly threadbare.