Wuhan Open: Muguruza wins near perfect match over Golubic
Garbine Muguruza dominated the competition with great focus a relentless force at the Wuhan Open Tuesday. The Spaniard showed no mercy to qualifier Viktorija Golubic who nearly got blanked in a 6-0, 6-1 score on centre court at the Wuhan Optical Valley Tennis Centre. Muguruza showed that she was on a mission to make a strengthened stance on the court in a match that took under an hour to finish.
They last played on the hard courts two years ago where the Swiss player took down the Spaniard in a quarterfinal at Linz. Muguruza was on the path of payback as she took care of business against Alison van Uytvanck Monday blanking her in the second set. With the series even between herself and Golubic, the world number 12 would certainly hunt down another win to continue playing in China.
She began by serving up a quick game that Golubic managed to get a point on. From the first game on, the Swiss star never allowed herself to be shutout but new that holding serve would be difficult as she found out in the second. The next four games flew by with Muguruza earning a triple break for the bagel where she gave Golubic eight points in total that concluded the opening set in 22 minutes. Muguruza served 67 percent but scored eight of ten from the first and four of five from the second. While she didn’t see much from the return side, she had achieved a shutdown of her opponent’s second serve which never came together due to three double faults.
There was a lot of elements that Golubic needed to change up in order to be a more forceful opponent to Muguruza. It came against her serve in the first where she fought to get ahead before deuce was achieved by the 24-year-old. She needed just one break to get the victory and consolidated it with a break of serve in the second holding Golubic back. She put together a strong response in the third giving up just one point that made it 3-0 in favor of the world number 12.
When it looked as if Golubic was out of ideas and down 5-0, she put together a serious push to not be double bageled in the sixth. She faced three match points killing off each one to force deuce that began the stalemate she wished to conduct. They went four breaks where she had the AD point three times to make it a charm and put up her first game-winner. The fight was alive in her but not enough to stop the speed Muguruza wanted to remain at. Despite letting Golubic get to deuce, where she saved two more match points, the third would not get away from her bringing a close to the festivities in 58 minutes.
With everything going the right way for the former world number one, she will try to keep the level of success she had built before going against the winner between Katerina Siniakova and Caroline Garcia.