Last 2 players in Paris are Serena Williams and Garbine Muguruza. They sealed their final spots after yesterday semifinals. Second Grand Slam tournament of the year is on the ending stretch and after 2 tense and quality weeks of tennis is time for the women’s final on Saturday.
World no.1 ended the fantastic run of Dutch Kiki Bertens in yesterday’s semifinal. In the first set Williams was down a break but she evened the score and in the tiebreak she won it with a score of 9-7 . She made 22 unforced errors and was so far of her best level.
“The first set was not very easy but I think that today I played better. She played very well,” Williams said. In the second set Serena continued to show not the best of her but finally stop Bertens dream for first Major final. For the entire match Serena hit 37 winners and 31 unforced errors and now she is in the final for the second consecutive year. For her 14 appearances in Paris Williams have 3 titles (2002,2013,2015) and now is trying to win not only her 4th title, but 22 Grand Slam one overall.
From the start of the tournament Serena took out M.Rybarikova, T.Pereira, K.Mladenovic, E.Svitolina, Y.Putintseva and K.Bertens. During those wins she lost only 1 set, during the quarterfinal against Putintseva. This year she won only 1 title but it was on clay and looking forward for another one here. The American continues to write history after every tournament and now she is on another page of it.
For the first time in her career Garbine Muguruza reached the final at Roland Garros. After 2 years of quarterfinals, now she is on the final stage of the tournament and looking forward for her first Major title. The 4th seed Spaniard eliminated 6/2 6/4 the 2010-th finalist Samantha Stosur. She started well and took 4-0 lead in the first set and closed it out – 6/2. In the second Garbine continued with the great job and even served for the match at 5/2 but in this moment her nerves kicked in. She was forced to serve for the final again and finally closed it with a 6/4 score line. Aggressive Muguruza scored 20 winners against 18 unforced errors. She won 22 of 28 points when her first serve was in (79%). World no.4 controls the things on the court in all the time and her opponent was taut to make many unforced errors.
Like Williams, Muguruza lost only 1 set in the tournament so far. She lost the first set in the opening match but after that she was so solid in her performance and won 12 consecutive sets. In her way to the final she beat A.K.Schmiedlova, M.Georges, Y.Wickmayer, S.Kuznetsova, S.Rogers and S.Stosur. Her second final in a Grand Slam tournament comes at a very difficult time for Muguruza. She hasn’t won a title so far this year and a total in her career she has only 2. First final for 2016 for 22-year-old is Roland Garros and she is totally in the zone for first title. “Emotions can sometimes be bad when you make a final,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to stay calm, prepare yourself as best you can and play with no regrets.”
In the re-match of Wimbledon final last year, this match is one of the biggest moments in Muguruza’s career. The interesting about this rivalry is that they played 4 matches, but all of them in Grand Slam tournaments It started with match at 2013 Australian Open when Serena easily passed her 6/2 6/0. They met one more time in Melbourne. 2015 Serena beat Garbine again, this time in 3-sets 2/6 6/3 6/2. Muguruza lost her first Major against Serena 4/6 4/6, but is the winner of their only one clay meeting. In 2014 Roland Garros Muguruza beat the defending champion in the 2nd round with one-sided 6/2 6/2.
Who will be the winner of the second Major of 2016? Options are 2, but the champion is only 1. Muguruza for the 1st or Williams for 22nd?
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