• Final Australia.Kenin stops the resurrection of Garbiñe Muguruza and wins his first major
  • Champion: who is Sofia Kenin, the 'unknown' who defeated Garbiñe Muguruza?

«I think I'm in a good process. I think I felt my game much better than before. I think I have to keep it up, keep working physically. These events are really long, so you must be strong ». Minutes after losing in front of a great Sofia Kenin the final of the Australian Open, Garbiñe Muguruza was a handful of convictions. The American of Russian origin won, 4-6, 6-2 and 6-2, but the reflection of the already champion in Roland Garros and Wimbledon points in the right direction.

«I have a good idea of ​​where my game should go, what I have to improve. These are the situations that really give you information, ”he added. Muguruza arrived in Melbourne without being among the 32 series heads and comes out with the number 16 on the back , rearmed for a course that has started much better than one would expect. There are, as she assumes, severe corrections to be made, as the player we saw in the last part of the game looked too much like the one that gave rise to clamorous disappointments in the last two years.

Muguruza could not culminate an amazing resurgence, but has left three top ten on the road: Elina Svitolina , fifth, in the third round, Kiki Bertens , ninth, in eighths, and Simona Halep , third, in the semifinals. He lost when he had won favorite consideration. Kenin, 14th, finished in the semifinals with Australia's Ashleigh Barty , number 1 in the world, and cut Coco Gauff's flight in the round of 16 , but lacks Garbiñe's conditions and experience in top-level games.

The Spanish-Venezuelan insists on the imperative of physical work, where he bases the evolution of his game, more consistent thanks to the greater mobility at the bottom of the track, to the search for alternatives that do not go exclusively to solve the points for the brave. Kenin tested the draft of the renewed Garbiñe.

Kenin's good reading

Few players like who will appear on Monday number 7 of the ranking handle the scalpel with such skill. A tactical intelligence joins an irreducible character. He had shown it to Barty, returning from an adverse break in each set, and he did it again in crucial moments, such as the 0-40 from which he escaped with 2-2 in the second set, to give the next game a decisive blow to the confrontation.

For the first time in its four Grand Slam finals, Muguruza met an unsaved tennis player, a new star in the succession of different Grand Slam tournament champions. He had lost with Serena Williams in Wimbledon 2015, he had defeated her a year later in Roland Garros and had ended up with Venus on the London grass in 2017. At a different time in his career, at 26, already with some war wounds, he He found a rival who faced with great ease an unknown challenge.

Something contributed the former number 1 in the world to Kenin's success, because the service, a cornerstone in the construction of his game, became a remover for her. It can be almost anecdotal to deliver the game with a double foul, but not that there were eight accumulated, that he gave up his serve five times and only won 31% of the points with the second . In addition, it was not very accurate when it came to taking advantage of its possibilities of breakage: only two of 12 before a woman who, it is true, offers her best in the face of this type of inconvenience. This is how Garbiñe was dissolved, ending with 45 unforced errors, almost double those committed by Kenin, 23 .

Almost three years later, Garbiñe has re-entered the direct struggle for a great, with solvent foundations to believe in her again. One of his problems to date has been its irregularity. The depth of the change in the new open stage with Conchita must be seen in the upcoming tournaments.

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