Australian Open: Kenin stops the resurrection of Garbie Muguruza and wins his first major

I won 4-6, 6-2 and 6-2 after making a great game. The Hispano-Venezuelan collapsed after a good start.

A 21-year-old girl hardly asked at the Grand Slam tournaments stopped the resurrection of Garbie Muguruza. Sofia Kenin, the youngest champion of the tournament since Maria Sharapova won in 2008, won the Spanish-Venezuelan 4-6, 6-2 and 6-2, in two hours and three minutes, in the Australian Open final , after an excellent expression of the qualities that had brought her here. The American of Russian origin does not weigh the inexperience before a rival who disputed her fourth final of this category, after winning Roland Garros in 2016 and Wimbledon 2017, having fallen in 2015 in the final match on the London grass. Garbie collapsed after a good first set and finished the tournament in the worst possible way, with his eighth double foul in the second game ball. Kenin, 14 seeded, be the number seven in the world this Monday.

Kenin does not wrinkle. It has character, as demonstrated in semifinals by lifting each other breaks Adverse to Asleigh Barty, world number 1 and host. It also has good timing and a lot of track stability; It is not easy to find the way around. Without owning the exuberance of Garbie's tennis, he competes and takes advantage of his qualities, which are not few. The Spanish-Venezuelan needed, as well, to impose its premises: lean on the service and on the right to take the initiative soon. He put the final face, with a break in the third game, and enjoyed four balls to stand 5-2 and serve. I did not take advantage of them and, worse yet, he gave his serve with two double fouls, so that the match was equaled to four. Far from getting rid, he reacted and broke again in the ninth game. He did not shake his hand to later convert his second set ball.

Fringes of the past

It was an unsuspected final before the start of the tournament. Muguruza vein of a convulsive season. He did without Sam Sumyk, his coach in the last three years, after falling in the first round of Wimbledon and hired Conchita Martnez to resume his course. Convalescent of a viral infection that forced her to leave Hobart, a tournament before Melbourne, she started with an adverse 6-0 against Shelby Rogers, in the first round. Despite the rising tone of his career, Kenin, 14 favorite, did not count to be in the fight for the title. Both, however, exhibited surpluses throughout the two weeks of competition.

There are still fringes, it is logical, in the process of stabilizing Garbie, who has managed to add to his consubstantial aggressiveness the rennet to sustain itself when the exchanges are dilated. But this time he penalized his low level with the service: he only won 31% of the points with the second. A bad decision, as it was rushing down the road, ended up costing him the disadvantage in the second set, losing service in the fourth game. Kenin, intelligent, always attentive, struck as a termite on the number 1 in the world, returning it at times to the problems that have prevented him from holding himself regularly among the best. The second set was his from beginning to end.

Muguruza reopened the door by creating a 0-40 in the fifth game, but there was Kenin, taking out his fortitude and his exquisite revs, to escape a delicate trance. The train lost a lot at the end of the caraquea, which then gave the service after having a 40-15 advantage. The blackout deepened as the final progressed. Garbie broke down, as if the rumors of a near past reappeared. Your tournament, in any case, is magnificent, and should serve as a stimulus to continue your reaction. He arrived in Melbourne without being among the 32 series heads and leaves 16, rearmed for the immediate future.