Garbine Muguruza showed her strengths in spades at the Bank of the West Classic Wednesday night. The 2017 Wimbledon champion dominated Kayla Day in a straight sets victory that went 6-2, 6-0 on Center Court at the Taube Family Tennis Center on the campus of Stanford University. It was her eighth consecutive match win since playing at Wimbledon with more to come with such tremendous power coming from her first serve.
The two met in the third round at Indian Wells this season which the Spaniard didn’t find easy to play. She received an epic fight from the 17-year-old but managed to come out on top of the three setter. In the current tournament, the teen took care of her match against Misaki Doi allowing her opponent two game winners onto her straight sets success.
With a much heavier opposition in the round of 16, the world number 129 had Muguruza for a second time hoping to pull off a stronger showing. The number one seeded star in the tournament had a very good run at the first half of the hard court season despite not titles coming from it, but in her second appearance at Stanford, the 23 year old gave herself just as good a chance as any to begin her quest.
With a much heavier opposition in the round of 16, the world number 129 had Muguruza for a second time hoping to pull off a stronger showing. The number one seeded star in the tournament had a very good run at the first half of the hard court season despite not titles coming from it, but in her second appearance at Stanford, the 23 year old gave herself just as good a chance as any to begin her quest.
Muguruza set the bar high to start the opening set and took the teen for a ride with a 3-1 lead. Muguruza’s hard smashes in the rallies were becoming too much for the teen who ran from side to side of the court. The recent Wimbledon champion turned out a 4-1 run indicating her breeze through games and a need for reset from Day’s camp. Rog Anderson came out to speak to her letting her know that the sun was going away giving her an even advantage to bring her best game going forward.
She didn’t get the best chance to do so despite picking up another victory against the world number six. The inevitable was in play during the eighth game which did go three breaks but finished with Muguruza winning the set in half an hour. The 23 year old had her game on lock maintaining with 71 percent of her first serves landing for points against Day. Her 29 total points against the 17 year old took its toll on the second serve which ended at 17 percent through the first eight games.
Her fight was put under a microscope against the Spaniard who charged in the first two games winning 8 of 11 points. She went on to win the next pair putting Day into a very tough situation with no sign of getting herself back in competition. A chance to get on the board appeared in the fifth with her fighting to reach deuce. The struggle came on saving the break points as Muguruza put fierce energy on the ball to win the third attempt.
The 17 year old was clearly irritated by her game while the number one seed sat one game from a straight sets victory. She made good on finishing off her competitor with a hard win to get the night over and done with finishing just two minutes short of an hour on court. “It was a great match and nice to come back after three years,” Muguruza said to Andrew Krasny after the match. “It feels good to come back and you have great memories from that time because it was one of the first tournaments I won in doubles.”
“I think I learned a lot from my previous match with Kayla. She won the US Open juniors so I knew she was going to be difficult so I really trained hard and prepared and be concentrated today.” The concentration takes a different shape going into Friday’s quarterfinals where she’ll face Ana Konjuh who also won her match in straight sets.
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