Aggressive Belgian ends Muguruza’s reign

Alison Van Uytvanck played the match of her life to dump defending champion Garbine Muguruza out of Wimbledon.

The Belgian, ranked 47th in the world, put on a brilliant performance to win 5-7 6-2 6-1 in the All England Club twilight.

Muguruza was strangely out of sorts but could not cope with Van Uytvanck’s tremendous hitting.

The Spaniard becomes the sixth top10 seed to lose in the opening two rounds of this year’s tournament, but this was the biggest shock of all.

Van Uytvanck said she had no choice but to be aggressive. She said: “I had to play like that I think, otherwise I wouldn’t have a chance.

“Obviously she’s so aggressive, so if I kept letting her play I would lose anyway. So I was like, ‘Let’s try this and maybe if it works we have a chance’.”

World number one Simona Halep is unsure whether she has the game to win the title.

The Romanian, who won her first grand slam at the French Open last month, beat Saisai Zheng 7-5 6-0 on Court One in just her second match on grass this season.

“It would be a huge thing to win Wimbledon,” she said, “but in this moment, I’m really far away from doing that.”

Angelique Kerber admitted to being caught cold as she had a battle to get past Claire Liu in three sets.

The 2016 finalist was staring defeat in the face after losing the first set, but came back to win 3-6 6-2 6-4.

Kerber will meet Naomi Osaka in the third round after the Japanese beat British favourite Katie Boulter 6-3 6-4.

Ashleigh Barty came out on top in a clash of former Wimbledon junior champions with Eugenie Bouchard.

The Australian, who won the girls’ title in 2011, beat the 2012 junior champion 6-4 7-5 on Court Three.

There were also wins for Jelena Ostapenko, Belinda Bencic, Carla Suarez Navarro and Daria Kasatkina.