Garbine Muguruza ended her losing streak at the AEGON Classic Tuesday. Despite tremendous adversity from Elizaveta Kulichkova the world number 13 held off the late rush to win 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 on Ann Jones Court at the Edgbaston Priory Tennis Club. It was the first win that Muguruza won in the tournament ending two years of defeats in the tournament.
This was a first-time meeting for the Russian to meet against the high ranked Spaniard where she 7-9 in last year’s grass court season. Muguruza had very little action on the grass and has the bar high against her. The world number 14 had a bad finish to her quarterfinals at Roland Garros and took time off to deal with the emotions. With almost two weeks rest, Muguruza will try and prove her power and offense on court.
She found herself working well in the opening games but the same could be said for the Russian who was serving just as well. The two traded off wins but remained on serve through four games. After the two got into their comfort zones, Muguruza was first to jump the gun and take off with control. She held in the fifth before a break in the sixth gave her a sizable lead. She went on and won her third in a row that obviously brought concern in Kulichkova’s camp. A quick chat from her coach during the break hoped to help her stay alive in the set.
Kulichkova had a grip on serve in the eighth but watched as the world number 15 began to claw back. The young Russian held her end to keep the opportunity alive by fighting in the next game to avoid the inevitable. Muguruza held her last set point to take the 6-3 set win in 35 minutes. While both were not near perfection with their offense, the edge went to Muguruza who performed with a pace that Kulichkova couldn’t keep up with. They both had troubles on returning the ball which could lead to differences in the second set.
They once again remained on serve until Kulichkova found a way to dig in and be the one in charge. The 21-year-old broke Muguruza and widened the margin to two games with a 3-1 hold in her efforts to be a sizable opponent. Kulichkova was nailing a good number of points on the first serve while Muguruza struggled to get up to pace having landed just 2 of 13 returns through five games. The Spaniard got another game under her belt but it didn’t make a dent in the fact that Kulichkova had her eyes set on pushing the set deeper.
Muguruza wanted to avoid that at all cost as she took another game on serve to avoid the end from coming soon. Kulichkova served herself the guarantee of capturing the set as she held back Muguruza and finished it with a short rally that ended with a forehand error from the Spaniard ending another 35 minutes of play. The Russian had 10 winners and three aces in the set that gave her a good chance at pulling off an early upset of the fourth seed.
Muguruza had other ideas as she opened the deciding set with two consecutive victories hoping to make her point clear to Kulichkova. It wasn’t coming in stride for the Russian as she rallied back to evening the score in the fourth. Muguruza still kept her head out front but with the margin just one game, Kulichkova had every chance of staying tight or overtaking the Spaniard. They went further into the set with Muguruza leading 4-3 after seven. She pulled off an important break of Kulichkova in the next game that had her serving for the match. In a last-ditch effort, the Russian held her stance and got ahead on the score with Muguruza to stay alive.
Sam Sumyk came out at the right moment to calm Muguruza down and help her lock down the next game by telling her to watch her opponents moves while going after every point. She reached a great point of holding two match points over Kulichkova to finish off the match with a three-shot rally that went into the net. It gave Muguruza a huge sigh of relief to end the 1 hour and 57-minute bout. It was the fourth seed’s first win on grass this season and she recorded her first win in Birmingham in three careers starts.
She’ll try and go for a second straight on Thursday when she faces American Alison Riske in the second round.
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