Alison Riske defeated Garbine Muguruza in a stunning comeback win at Indian Wells. After dropping the first set 0-6 and being down 0-3 in the second, the world No.53 resurged to a 0-6 6-3 6-1 victory in the second round.
After letting the first set get away from her, Riske surged with tremendous crowd support. With renewed energy she pulled Muguruza into long rallies, giving her opponent plenty of room for unforced errors. The Spaniard was visibility frustrated, just narrowly missing the line on point after point. Muguruza was unable to gather herself and find the calm confidence she started with, allowing Riske to run away with the third set for her first career Top 10 win since Wuhan in 2019.
Going into the match, they were 2:2 in previous encounters, with Riske having won the two most recent. She cited this record when speaking with the press after the victory: “I did feel, despite how poorly I was playing, if I could just scrap through a couple games, get myself on the board, I was actually going to have a chance. That’s actually how it unfolded. She double-faulted for me to break her serve to go 3-2. I really had a good feeling about that afterwards.” Riske added, “I do pride myself on always fighting regardless of what the situation is.” (photos: Jimmie48)
It seems to me that Garbine has paid much more attention to her hard hitting job rather than using it as a tactical change when needed, in other words, she has to pay necessary attention to the consistency of ball control – – over the net, in the court & far from her opponent instead of the style of 1 powerful fast shot for 1 point. Just like the article says, Garbine’s unforced errors helped pack herself home at early round.
American famous coach Vic Braden emphasized that the essence of winning tennis is trying one’s best to earn each individual point by making 1 more successful shot than the opponent does. Without this strategical concept in one’s mind, the unforced errors must be piled up for donation. Failure to win is the outcome for sure.