Sprinting Down the Stretch

“I really want to come here and win all the matches that I can,” Garbiñe Muguruza said in Singapore on Wednesday. Mission, so far, accomplished. With her 6-4, 6-4 victory over Angelique Kerber, the Spaniard ran her record at her first WTA Finals to 2-0. While that apparently isn’t enough to guarantee her a spot in the semifinals just yet, we can safely say that she has one of her—very long—legs already there.

If, like me, you wondered at the start of the week whether Muguruza was ready to be the No. 2 seed in her Finals debut, her results, and her words above, should go a long way toward convincing you. From what the Spaniard says, she’s not feeling pressure to live up to her seeding; instead, she’s focused on making the most of her first opportunity to play in the event, and to play it when the world’s best, Serena Williams, is elsewhere.

It seems Muguruza still needs to prove to herself and everyone else that she belongs here. For her sake, let’s hope she keeps feeling that way. In beating Kerber on Wednesday, Muguruza put on perhaps the most impressive performance of her very impressive fall run.

“Every time I step on the court against Angelique, I know it’s going to be difficult,” Muguruza said, “so I just have to give my best if I’m going to get the victory.”

The 22-year-old Muguruza vs. the 27-year-old Kerber should be, and still could be, one of the WTA’s most entertaining rivalries. The polar-opposite attributes are all in place: Lefty vs. righty, attacker vs. defender, brazen youth vs. veteran of the grind, let-it-rip vs. steady-as-she-goes. The two woman had split their previous six matches, and their 14-12 tiebreaker at Wimbledon capped one of the season’s best sets of tennis. Today, for a few minutes, it looked as if this match might morph into a classic as well.

With Muguruza serving at 4-3 in the second set, Kerber did what she loves to do: She dug in. She bent lower and ran faster. She broke with a dipping pass to make it 4-4, and in the next game took a 40-30 lead with her most scintillating scramble of the afternoon. When she tracked down a floating Muguruza volley and flipped a backhand crosscourt winner past her, it appeared that Kerber had found her stubborn groove.

She had, but it wasn’t good enough. On the next point, Muguruza approached the net again, but instead of floating her volley, this time she made sure she stuck it for a winner. From there Muguruza hit a blistering forehand winner, broke serve, and held easily for the match. She closed it with another volley winner; it was the 28th point she had won in 36 trips to the net. Muguruza, who finished with 38 winners against 26 errors, had stopped Kerber’s run cold, and taken her own game to a place where even the German couldn’t catch up.

The scores—6-4, 6-4—were identical to those in Maria Sharapova’s win over Simona Halep the previous day. This isn’t just a coincidence. Both matches showed that, when two players are reasonably on their games in a big WTA event, it’s the one who takes the initiative who maintains the advantage, no matter what type of court they're playing on. When the stakes are highest, putting pressure on your opponent matters more than the errors you may commit when you do. Just like at the Slams, the roll call of recent year-end championship winners going back to 2008—Serena, Serena, Serena, Petra Kvitova, Kim Clijsters, Serena, Venus Williams—shows that at this level, might really does make right. Muguruza won just one tournament in 2015, while Kerber won four, but it was the Spaniard who beat the German when it mattered most: At the French Open, Wimbledon, and now in Singapore.

Speaking of Kvitova, that’s who Muguruza will face next. It will be kill-or-be-killed tennis; but while the points probably won't last long, the implications might. Muguruza’s 2015 has begun to resemble the season Kvitova put together in 2011, when she was 21. That year she won Wimbledon and a Serena-less WTA Finals; this year, at 22, Muguruza has reached the Wimbledon final and has played as well as anyone in Singapore. We’ll see how it goes when might meets might on Friday. If it’s anything like today, Muguruza will learn and improve as the match progresses. That’s what happens when you’re young and hungry, and you just want to win all the matches you can.