Garbine Muguruza built together another strong performance at the Mutua Madrid Open Sunday. The world number three had a lot of good moments from her offense against Shuai Peng that gave her a 6-4, 6-2 straight sets win on Manolo Santana Court at La Caja Magica
Having the home court advantage stood strong with the world number three in what was her sixth appearance in the tournament. Despite not being able to get out of the second round, the 24-year-old looked to make good on her run in the Spanish capital with her countrymen supporting her to play her best. Peng has a lot running against her including her loss to Muguruza back in 2014. While the defeat occurred on hard court, she would have to be careful of the Spaniard as her performance on clay proved to pay off huge in recent history.
They started things off holding serve through three games before the top Spaniard etched out a break in the fourth. Muguruza was finding that her forehand was right where she wanted it landing big hits across that beat Peng once again taking a 4-1 hold on the score. The Chinese star added a second win to her bottom line trying to get a grip in the set to fight off the third seed. On deuce in the seventh, Peng gained another victory that had Muguruza in a stall hanging on to her one game lead.
The Spaniard got in position to close out the set but Peng pulled together a service hold in the ninth that forced Muguruza to do the same. The 24-year-old had a lot of difficulty getting that done on her own terms as Peng battled to extend the set. After a few break and over nine minutes played in the tenth game, Muguruza found a way to end the first set taking nearly an hour to be a set up in the match. The high ranked Spaniard had 15 winners in her success of the first that included her numerous points from the net.
She got into an early pickle with Peng who wanted nothing more than to hold her opening serve in the second. The players went deep into the game that lasted ten minutes before Peng held in the game. Muguruza add her own service hold to the mix ready to hunt down the break. She gained two on the march to victory taking complete control of the set. After another successive hold in the sixth, Muguruza played for a spot in the second round on Peng’s service. The Chinese star handled her own gaining 40-0 on Muguruza before holding with two game points.
The spotlight was on the Spanish number one to get it done on her own terms in the eighth. Reaching three match points, the third seed was forced to play the second serve giving Peng one of them back. A service winner on her second attempt was enough to get it done in 1 hour and 39 minutes. She prepares for her second-round match in the coming days facing the winner of Donna Vekic and Georgina Garcia Perez.
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