By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, January 23, 2020
An assertive Garbine Muguruza topped Aussie favorite Ajla Tomljanovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 moving into the Australian Open third round for the sixth time in the past seven years.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve
Garbine Muguruza has soared to major mountain tops on court and scaled Mount Kilimanjaro offseason.
Now, the two-time Grand Slam champion is embracing the challenge of the climb.
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An assertive Muguruza topped Aussie favorite Ajla Tomljanovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 moving into the Australian Open third round for the sixth time in the past seven years.
Muguruza, who narrowly missed out on seeded status for Melbourne, won the final three games beating the world No. 52 for the second time in three meetings.
"I was expecting a tough match, because we played before and I saw she was having good matches," said Muguruza, who battled a viral illness earlier this month. "So I was ready for a battle. Yeah, she did push me and I pushed her.
"At the end on the third set, it was very close for both of us. Just happy the way I played and how I managed to close it up on those, in those final games."
Forward thinking helped the 2017 quarterfinalist come through.
Following her flat strokes forward, Muguruza won 24 of 28 trips to net.
The 32nd-ranked Spaniard showed a strong spine under pressure saving six of nine break points and exchanged exuberant smiles with coach Conchita Martinez after a physical two hour, 21-minute triumph.
In recent years, Muguruza sometimes looked miserable during majors and struggled to tame her heavy drives.
The 2016 Roland Garros semifinalist failed to clear the second round in five of her last eight majors, including successive first-round losses at Wimbledon and the US Open last year.
Muguruza made some major changes splitting with long-time coach Sam Sumyk last year and reuniting with former Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez, who mentored Muguruza when she raised the Rosewater Dish in 2017.
Then she made a major misty mountain hop.
An admitted adrenaline junkie, Muguruza took a life changing trip in November climbing to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
"It was a very hard challenge, completely different of what I do," Muguruza said. "You're climbing that mountain and it's only you. You don't get any award, any prize, any photo, any nothing up there. It's really challenging you physically and mentally to be there, and I was just looking for something fun, different experience outside from tennis.
"Tennis, you know, we're here the whole year, and just to get out a little bit and, yeah, do something different. I had no idea about it, because I have never done anything similar before."
The experience taught the 26-year-old Spaniard a valuable lesson: when the road steepens and conditions seem unbearable keep climbing.
"I really like the experience to see myself in the middle of nowhere and, yeah, just having one clear thought just to keep climbing," Muguruza said. "I did struggle there a lot with my, you know, my team and climbing and being below zero and at night.
"You know, all of these things that, you know, at some point you're, like, Okay, what am I doing here? It's really tough. I was happy to go through. I went everything, with everything in mind. Like, Okay, I'm going. I don't know how I'm going to come back or whatever. But I didn't care, really."
Aiming to continue her AO ascent, Muguruza meets either fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina or American Lauren Davis for a spot in the fourth round.