All tennis players want to win, but some days they’re willing to do a little more—or a lot more—to make it happen. Saturday was one of those days for Garbiñe Muguruza.
Muguruza was facing Karolina Pliskova in the Cincinnati semifinals. The Spaniard was 1-6 against the Czech, and she hadn’t beaten her since their first meeting, four years ago. Yes, Pliskova was No. 1in the world, and yes, she can be a difficult opponent to face when her game is clicking. But Muguruza is a two-time major champion; why couldn’t she get her game to work against this opponent? She was determined to turn the tables.
“I knew I was going to die on the court if it was necessary,” Muguruza said. “I don’t know, I wanted it.”
Death, or even exhaustion, weren’t necessary this time for Muguruza, who had survived two lengthy battles in the Ohio heat this week against Madison Keys and Svetlana Kuznetsova. Maybe it was the force of her will on Saturday, but she played well enough not just to win, but to win going away against the top seed, 6-3, 6-2.
While she was up and down in her earlier matches, everything came together for Muguruza today. She served well, won 70 percent of her service points, and wasn’t broken. She returned with pace and depth down the middle, won 75 percent of Pliskova’s second-serve points, and created 14 break points against one of the game’s best servers. As she has all week, Muguruza played with patient, tightly controlled aggression from the baseline. When she had a chance to be aggressive, she was, but when a safe rally shot was called for, that’s what she used. As for Pliskova, she was coming off a two-win day on Friday, and looked a step slow getting to the ball.
In some ways, Muguruza’s Cincy campaign has been every bit as impressive as her Wimbledon run, in part because she’s doing it so soon after Wimbledon. She came to the U.S. a week earlier than many expected to play Stanford, and by now she has obviously acclimated her game to the courts and the conditions in the States, which haven’t always favored her in the past. And that should serve her well when the summer hard-court circuit winds to its peak in New York.
“I wanted to keep this fight going,” Muguruza said when she was asked why she had committed to so much tennis this summer. It doesn’t look like that fight is going to end here.
