By Erik Gudris | Monday, May 2, 2016

 

Spain’s Garbine Muguruza finds herself out of Madrid after falling in three sets to Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Being a top seed in the women’s draw at the Madrid Open is not easy. Just ask Spain’s Garbine Muguruza.

In a women’s event already littered with upsets, Spain’s No. 1 finds herself out of her country’s biggest event in a surprise loss on Monday.

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Instead, Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu is moving on into the next round.

Though Muguruza had won her previous two meetings against Begu, this second round meeting proved not to be predictable at all from the start.

Begu, who earlier beat Eugenie Bouchard, jumped out to 5-2 lead in the opening set only to watch Muguruza mount a comeback. Eventually, Muguruza took the set 7-5.

While Muguruza looked poised to close things out in straights, Begu had other ideas. Once again, Begu built a 5-2 lead this time in the second set. Though Begu held multiple set points, Muguruza forced things into a tiebreak.

Begu held an advantage in the tiebreak, but it was Muguruza who battled back to win the tiebreak and force a deciding set.

Muguruza’s home court advantage would not help her though in the final set.

After being tied at 3-all, it was Begu who secured the key service break to go up 4-3. Begu would soon hold serve for 5-3 forcing her opponent to serve to stay in the match. Muguruza fought off one match point in the final game. But, on the second match point against her, Muguruza hit long in an extended rally.

Despite the near silence from the home crowd, Begu celebrated her 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-3 victory.

With the loss, Madrid now finds itself without its top three women’s seeds. Both top seed Agnieszka Radwanska and No. 2 seed Angelique Kerber lost earlier in the event. 

"I think I could have started better, but I managed to come back," Muguruza said in her post-loss press conference. "I managed to fight and find my game,” Muguruza said after the match to WTA.com “But I think it has been a very good game. I think she played pretty well. I played against Begu before and I think that today she played much better than previous times."

"I was a little bit disappointed in my game when I was leading. I wouldn't be as aggressive as I was before," Begu said later. "My coach told me I'm really close, and really playing well. I just had to keep fighting for every ball, and that was the key."

Next up for Begu is American Christina McHale who upset No. 13 seed Karolina Pliskova 7-6(3), 6-4.