By Richard Pagliaro

There was a time when Garbine Muguruza's desire for success was so strong she was nearly suffocating her Babolat racquet.

These days, a calmer Muguruza is making the string sing in Melbourne.

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The 2020 Australian Open runner-up rolled through seven straight games dispatching lucky loser Margarita Gasparyan 6-4, 6-0 to reach the Australian Open second round for the ninth consecutive year.

Empowered by her run to the Yarra Valley classic final last week where she lost to world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, Muguruza is playing with patience to complement her powerful flat strikes.

More importantly, the 14th-seeded Spaniard said she's learned to embrace the unknown.

"Tennis players never relax, no matter which round, which tournament," Muguruza said. "I feel like now I approach different. I accept the fact that it can go wrong. I'm more open to adaptation, to uncertainty.

"I think, yeah, with the years you start to have an easier perspective, to not take it too emotional everything. Yeah, honestly, it's a lot about experience."

The experience of knocking off three Top 10 players—Elina Svitolina, Kiki Bertens and Simona Halep—to reach the 2020 AO final where fell to Sofia Kenin in three sets helped Muguruza to play with some freedom again. She swept Kenin 6-2, 6-2 in Melbourne last week finding a measure of revenge for her 2020 final loss.

Prior to her trip to the final last February, Muguruza suffered opening-round exits at Wimbledon and the US Open as she wanted to win so badly she found herself choking the grip of her Babolat racquet preventing her from letting "the racquet talk."

"I wanted it too much. I was getting frustrated too early," Muguruza said. "At the end I couldn't let the racquet talk. I feel like now, after that experience, I managed to stay a little bit calmer and to just go and compete, probably have less expectations. I'm always, like, there and always so pumped. I'm just knowing myself a little bit better now, finding ways to compete and not let that energy and that desire, too much desire, get in the way probably."



Muguruza has dished out three bagels in her last 12 sets moving into a second-round meeting with 22-year-old Russian qualifier Liudmila Samsonova.

"I think the hard work, it's there, it's showing on the court," Muguruza said. "I was excited to have this feeling towards a Grand Slam."

Photo credit: Vince Caligiuri/Tennis Australia