Spain will have a tennis player fighting for the title at the WTA Finals in Guadalajara (Mexico). Something that only achieved Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in 1993, when he lost to Steffi Graf at the Garden in New York. The debutant Paula Badosa was already classified as the first of the group since Saturday. And today Garbiñe Muguruza did his homework brilliantly. After the triumph in three sets (0-6, 6-4 and 6-4) of Karolina Pliskova over Barbora Krejcikova, it was only worth winning the surprising Anett Kontaveit and did it 6-4 and 6-4 in 1h: 28.
Garbiñe and Paula will meet on Tuesday (9pm, TDP and DAZN). In the other semifinal will be the Estonian against Maria Sakkari or Aryna Sabalenka.
Muguruza, who has arrived in Mexico highly motivated, happy to play in a country where she has won two titles in Monterrey and where she has the approval of the public, It came out like a shot. Entry break that he no longer released and that was like a slap in the face for Kontaveit (25 years old and 8th in the ranking), one of the revelations of the course.
The Estonian was presented as the most fit player on the circuit, as they credited their 12 victories in a row, 28-2 in his last tournaments with titles in Moscow and Cluj-Napoca (previously it had also conquered Ostrava and Cleveland). He had easily defeated Pliskova and Krejcikova and found himself facing a very serious tennis player, determined to get into her second semifinals, after 2015, in her fourth appearance at the Masters. Serving to take the set, Muguruza had to face two break balls. And he controlled them with poise.
In the second sleeve, same story. Strike in the form of a break from Garbiñe in the first game and an enormous solidity to sustain him while Kontaveit, erratic with a misaligned drive, was becoming obfuscated before the great game of the Spanish that she had just defeated in Moscow on October 22 by a double 6-1. The Caracas player still had to face a break ball when he served to win, as a result of pressure. But this was not the same Muguruza. This one wants to be a teacher.
Embedded in the shirt of the Mexican soccer team, she expressed her happiness at the foot of the track: “My serve has worked very well against a player who had just won many victories.” He finished with 80% of points won with first serves and managed to neutralize the three break balls that Kontaveit had. Badosa already waits, with whom he has never faced. “This shows the great level that is in Spain now,” he was delighted. In the final, one of the two will fight for a title that is still resisting.
