Garbine Muguruza advances with a ‘day to be pleased’ straight-set victory at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
After a tough first-round encounter against Veronika Kudermetova, seventh-seeded Garbie Muguruza breezed through her second-round match against China’s Wang Qiang, losing only three games on her route to a spot in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics.
G. Muguruza Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
On the first day of the second round of the women’s draw at the Ariake Tennis Park, tennis venue of the Tokyo Olympics, Garbie Muguruza of Spain faced Wang Qiang of China, the lone Chinese player still in the draw whom she had never beaten previously.
Two-time Grand Slam champion Garbine Muguruza defeated Tianjin native Zhang Shuai in just over an hour to advance to the second round. This was their third and final meeting, both of which took place in the fall of 2018.
Muguruza comes back from being down a break to Win the first set.
After Muguruza started the match with a love service hold of her own, the next four games all went to the server in this Spanish-Chinese duel.
In the third game of the match, with Wang serving at 2-3, Muguruza created the first break chance of the match and ultimately converted it to go up 4-2 in the match.
Wang, who is only 29 years old, came back into the match in the following game by breaking Muguruza and then holding serve.
That was the final straw for the Spanish player, and she promptly broke serve again to extend her lead and win the set (6-3).
Muguruza seals the deal with a bagel in the second set.
Muguruza, who was born in Venezuela, did not want to wait around for the 27-year-old to take the spotlight with her own bagel in the second set.
Muguruza reached the deciding game by converting three of four break point opportunities while conceding only one point on service.
With a 5-0 lead in the set and serving for the win, the Spaniard encountered some resistance from Wang, who saved both of the Spanish player’s match points.
Muguruza won the match in straight sets, 6-3, 6-0, in little over an hour and a half, about half the time it took her to win her previous match.
Muguruza’s significantly improved performance was reflected in the stats: she only lost five points on her first serve while winning twenty, and although having two fewer aces than in her last match (11 to 2), she converted on five of her six break point opportunities.
Wang, on the other hand, had trouble getting her serve in, converting on only 46% of her first serves versus Muguruza’s 63%. Wang also won less points (27 vs. 54) and committed more unforced errors (nine) than Muguruza did (13).
“To be quite sincere, I am quite pleased with my performance here today. I played well, was aggressive the whole game, and won, which is especially satisfying given that my opponent was someone who had previously beaten me twice. Muguruza said, “This time I came out for retribution.” she is originally from Caracas.
For more thoughts from the 2016 Roland Garros winner, click here. There are still a few more, but this is a good day to be pleased.
The primary consideration is energy conservation. One must take everything one match at a time in order to succeed in a tournament of this magnitude.
