A 21-year-old girl with hardly any pedigree in Grand Slam tournaments stopped the resurrection of Garbiñe Muguruza. Sofia Kenin, the youngest champion of the tournament since Maria Sharapova won in 2008, won the Spanish-Venezuelan 4-6, 6-2 and 6-2, in two hours and three minutes, in the Australian Open final , after an excellent expression of the qualities that had brought her here. The American of Russian origin did not weigh the inexperience before a rival who disputed her fourth final of this category, after winning Roland Garros in 2016 and Wimbledon 2017, having fallen in 2015 in the final match on the London grass. Garbiñe collapsed after a good first set and finished the tournament in the worst possible way, with his eighth double foul in the second game ball. Kenin, 14th seeded, will be number seven in the world this Monday.
Kenin does not wrinkle. It has character, as he showed in the semifinals by lifting two adverse breaks against Asleigh Barty, world number 1 and hosts. It also has good timing and a lot of track stability; It is not easy to find the way around. Without owning the exuberance of Garbiñe tennis, he competes and makes profits to his qualities, which are not few. The Spanish-Venezuelan needed, thus, to impose its premises: lean on the service and on the right to take the initiative soon. He put the final face, with a break in the third game, and enjoyed four balls to stand 5-2 and serve. He did not take advantage of them and, worse still, he gave up his serve with two double fouls, so that the match was equaled to four. Far from taking control, he reacted and broke again in the ninth game. He did not shake his hand to later convert his second set ball.
Fringes of the past
It was an unsuspected final before the start of the tournament. Muguruza came from a turbulent season. He dispensed with Sam Sumyk, his coach in the last three years, after falling in the first round of Wimbledon and hired Conchita Martínez to resume his course. Convalescent of a viral infection that forced her to leave Hobart, a tournament before Melbourne, she started with an adverse 6-0 against Shelby Rogers, in the first round. Despite the rising tone of his career, Kenin, 14th favorite, did not count to be in the fight for the title. Both, however, exhibited merits over the two weeks of competition.
There are still fringes, it is logical, in the process of stabilization of Garbiñe, that it has managed to add to its consubstantial aggressiveness the rennet to sustain itself when the exchanges are dilated. But this time he penalized his low level with the service: he only won 31% of the points with the second. A bad decision, as it was rushing down the road, ended up costing him the disadvantage in the second set, losing service in the fourth game. Kenin, intelligent, always attentive, struck like a termite on the former number 1 of the world, returning it at times to the problems that have prevented him from holding himself regularly among the best. The second set was his from beginning to end.
Muguruza reopened the door by creating a 0-40 in the fifth game, but there was Kenin, taking his fortitude and his exquisite setback for a walk, to escape a very delicate trance. The train lost a lot in the mood of the Caracas, which then gave the service after having a 40-15 advantage. The blackout deepened as the final progressed. Garbiñe broke down, as if the remnants of an even close past reappeared. Your tournament, in any case, is magnificent, and should serve as a stimulus to continue your reaction. He arrived in Melbourne without being among the 32 series heads and leaves him 16th, rearmed for the immediate future.
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