Garbiñe Muguruza continues to deny. The Spaniard, who a few days ago said goodbye in the second round of the Mutua Madrid Open with a horrible performance against the Ukrainian Ahnelina Kalinina, she lost at the first change in the WTA 1,000 Rome against kazakh Yulia Putintseva (27 years old and 40th in the world)a rival who had only won it once, and by withdrawal, in three matches. Muguruza was leading 6-3, 5-4, 30-0 and let the victory slip away with three unfortunate errors in the second set tiebreak. In the third, he barely competed (6-1), disheartened by the dozens of left shots that Putintseva threw at herknowing how much Garbiñe, a great tennis player, suffers when she has to run forward.
The woman from Caracas is not doing well, she skipped some tournaments to have a break that has not worked for her, and she needs to find out the reasons that have led her to this situation. In some moments of the game, he gave the impression that he was recovering the good tone to emulate his good performances at the Foro Italico, where he was a semifinalist in 2016, 2017 and 2020. But he ran out of resources to counteract the insistent game of a rival who only I won points with those drops and with high balls that made it difficult for Muguruza to enter with more precision with the drive. On the net, it doesn’t fuel and can’t seem to find a way to improve. His opponents know and they draw her into that area where she has a really bad time.
Putintseva, a very strong player with a devilish character (“I’m a gangster on the court and an angel off it,” she acknowledges), broke down the Spanish with that ability that Carlos Alcaraz is making fashionable and that is not easy to execute. In fact, Garbiñe hardly uses this resource, nor does he practice the slice backhand. A combination that players like Ons Jabeur are proving that it works within a circuit in which power and aggressiveness predominate without much control. Retirement school Ashleigh Barty, go.
time to react
It will be precisely the Tunisian, champion last Saturday in Madrid, who will face Yulia this Thursday in the round of 16 after beating the Australian Ajla Tomljanovic 7-5 and 6-2. Muguruza, who is in a dynamic reminiscent of his worst years, has a week and a half to try to make it decently (although it is likely that he will no longer make it to the top-10), and he is very capable of doing so, at Roland Garros.where she was champion in 2016. What times those were.