By Chris Oddo | Wednesday, August 11, 2015
Garbine Muguruza's first post-Wimbledon match turned disatrous on Wednesday in Toronto. Lucie Safarova was also upset.
Photo Source: Shaun Botterill/Getty
Spain’s Garbine Muguruza played her first match since Wimbledon on Wednesday in Toronto and was trampled by a red-hot Lesia Tsurenko, 7-5, 6-1, at the Rogers Cup. Tsurenko’s triumph is her 9th consecutive victory. After winning the Istanbul title, the Ukranian qualified for Toronto and defeated Yanina Wickmayer on Tuesday to set up her encounter with Muguruza today.
Additionally, Tsurenko has now won three consecutive battles against Top-10 players.
Muguruza, playing in her first match as a Top-10 player, blew a 5-3 lead in the first set and dropped ten of the last eleven games to fall. After lagging behind 4-0 in set two, the Spaniard obliterated her racquet but the release of toxic energy didn’t seem to help matters as the punchy Ukrainian had too much focus and firepower on this day.
Muguruza wasn’t the only Top-10 seed to fall early on Wednesday. Lucie Safarova fell to rising star Daria Gavrilova, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, to drop to 3-4 since reaching the Roland Garros final in early June.
Safarova, seeded seventh, had her chances to come away with the victory. She was serving for the match at 6-4, 5-4, 30-0, but the feisty Gavrilova battled back to force the decider.
“When I was down 5-4, 30-0 I was like ‘Okay you can still do it. You broke her once you can do it again,’” said Gavrilova.
In the decider the pair traded breaks twice before Gavrilova broke on her second match point with Safarova serving to stay alive at 5-6.
Gavrilova’s triumph marks her third victory in her last four matches against Top-10 opposition. The Russian has come from outside the Top-200 at the beginning of this season all the way to her current ranking of 40 in the world.
The 21-year-old firecracker, who upset Sam Stosur in the first round, will face Roberta Vinci in the round of 16 at Toronto. Vinci defeated Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, 6-3, 6-3, on Wednesday.
Tsurenko will face qualifier Carina Witthoeft or Alison Riske.
11th-seeded Ekaterina Makarova also fell on Wednesday. The Russian was knocked off by qualifier Polona Hercog, 6-2, 6-7(2), 6-7(5).