Badosa and Muguruza caress the WTA Finals after the fall of Jabeur

Garbiñe Muguruza and Paula Badosa have taken a giant step forward on Tuesday in their aspirations to contest the Guadalajara WTA Finals from November 10 to 17. All this without going out onto a track. And is that Ons Jabeur, one of the direct rivals of the two Spanish in the ‘race’, has fallen by surprise in his debut in the Moscow tournament. The Tunisian retired in the second set when she already lost to the Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova by a painful 6-1 and 1-0, which is a jug of cold water for her after she signed up for the appointment in the Russian capital to add some vital points in a ranking where she ranks eighth.

Already in the annual classification, that eighth place that would give the last ticket for the Finals (at the expense of changes due to the resignations that make effective better classified) occupies it Badosa, after her brilliant triumph at Indian Wells, with a 92-point margin over a Jabeur what happens to him and that he will have to win points in next category 250 tournaments like Cluj (where Paula could also be) to reverse the situation. Garbiñe, seventh in the race, has a foot and a half in Guadalajara with this defeat for the Tunisian: 130 rental points. Elina Svitolina and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who this week compete in Tenerife and Moscow respectively, they have not yet said their last word, but their options to leave out Mugu or Paula are much more remote.

Garbiñe, the scene

Who also competes this week in Moscow is Muguruza herself. The Spanish-Venezuelan, second seed of the tournament after Aryna Sabalenka, will debut this wednesday (was exempt from the first round) in front of a Tereza Martincova (51º) with which it has never been measured. If he surpasses the debut, Conchita Martínez’s pupil could find himself on his way to the final, at the bottom of the table, against rivals such as Kontaveit (quarterfinals), Pavlyuchenkova (semifinals) and Sabalenka, in a theoretical grand final.