Australian Open: Garbie Muguruza: stronger, more serene, more committed, better tennis player

Seek before Sofia Kenin his third Grand Slam title. With Conchita as coach, she has made a demanding preseason, prioritizing physical work.

When it comes to seeking explanations when Garbie Muguruza resurfaces, one must turn to what he has been doing since at the beginning of last October he ended his worst season in Pekn since he broke into the lite with a first-round loss to Sofia Kenin , the same woman who will meet this Saturday (09.30, Eurosport) on the other side of the net at the Australian Open final, where to look for her third Grand Slam title. The most important and revealing decision came on the bench, when he announced the hiring of Conchita Martnez as a coach, once the Wimbledon champion in 1994 finalized her contractual relationship with Karolina Pliskova. Too often in the past two years, Garbie seemed to play scared, she looks unhappy and fearful on the track, as if she were continually worried about losing. Of course, when you think like that, you end up losing. Now Muguruza has regained his champion mentality. (…) What has changed? I have two words for you: Conchita Martnez, I wrote this Friday in your column on the WTA website Martina Navratilova, winner of 18 Grand Slam titles and victim of Conchita in that unforgettable final on the London grass.

In just one month, since the beginning of the season reaching the semifinals in Shenzhen, Muguruza has won 11 matches, the same number of victories obtained between the first week of April last year and the aforementioned closing of the course, in almost six months of competition .

Garbie reached the Wimbledon final in 2015, and entered the top ten from the hand of Alejo Mancisidor, and won his two Grand Slam titles next to Sam Sumyk. Tint: the French coach, with whom the relationship was tense in an extraordinary way, as reflected by television cameras in certain parties, was on paternity leave while Conchita Martnez took up her position in Wimbledon, in 2017, when the Spanish-Venezuelan became With the cup. Conchita joined Garbie's team, again with Sumyk in command, on the 2018 American spring tour, but the experiment didn't work.

Maximum involvement

Already with Conchita in command of the operations, after working under the advice of Anabel Medina, captain of the Spanish team of Copa Federacin, since he did without Sumyk, after falling in the first round of the last Wimbledon, was involved as never before in the preseason. A week of work in Geneva, where he lives, and another four in San Diego, with the aim of adjusting his always remarkable tensile machinery from a demanding physical strengthening. Santiago de Martino, physical trainer, and Cathrin Junker, physiotherapist, are also part of the renewal in his team.

At 26 years of age, he still has ample room for improvement, which must come from sufficient arguments not to rely exclusively on two or three strokes to define the points. Garbie, who is already guaranteed to be 16 of the rnking again and be 11 if he wins the title, super in the semifinals to Simona Halep, small, fast, willing to confront long in the rallies, with 39 degrees in the Rod Laver Arena, in the The warmest Melbourne has endured in this edition of the Australian Open. And he did it knowing how to mix his congenital aggression, culminated with 20 successful rises to the network in 30 approaches, with enough fortitude when the exchanges were dilated. Garbie has stopped playing Russian roulette.

The influence of Conchita Martnez also manifests itself in a much more serene mood. Volcanic player, of enormous temperament, Muguruza had entered that dangerous inertia pointed out by Navratilova. Drowned by anxiety, by training methods where a permanent picket was appealed, entered a well whose bottom was difficult to sweep.

Today I will not have it easy before the American Kenin, 14 favorite, at 21 and 80 days, the youngest finalist since Maria Sharapova in 2008. A tight final appears, as the records of both dictate throughout the tournament. But beyond the outcome, the season dictates whether we are facing a new Garbie, determined to discuss the future to the emerging generation. Better could not start.