Garbine Muguruza and Lucie Safarova opened the White Group action on Monday with the Spaniard winning 6-3 7-6(4).
Just hours after officially rising to world No.3 ranking and becoming the first player born after 1991 to crack Top 3, the 22-year-old Muguruza showed no hesitation in recording a victory in her WTA Finals debut, even though her opponent played well. In the first set Muguruza faced no break points and converted two of her nine, while the battle intensified in the second set and even though Muguruza’s performance dipped, she got her high level back in the tiebreak, confidently and fearlessly grabbing what she deserves.
Despite the loss, Safarova’s confidence has probably been boosted, especially having in mind that this is her first tournament since the US Open, during which she was troubled by an abdominal strain, while soon afterwards situation went from bad to worse as she got some bad bacterial infection, had to be hospitalized for the first time in her life and it was obviously a scary experience, especially because the antibiotics she originally received weren’t helping.
Muguruza and Safarova are the only two players competing in both singles and doubles at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global and the Czech can also find consolation for the singles loss in the fact that on Sunday she and her doubles partner Bethanie Mattek-Sands defeated the team of Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3 7-6(1).
Stay with us, as later in the day our photographer Jimmie48 will post his Monday’s gallery from the Singapore courts.
