Australian Open - Final: Sofia Kenin wins! Three-sentence success over Garbine Muguruza
The American Sofia Kenin won her first Grand Slam title with a three-set victory over Garbine Muguruza. She won 4: 6, 6: 2 and 6: 2 after 2 hours and 2 minutes of play. (The match to read in the live ticker!)
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Feb 01, 2020, 08:19 pm
Kenin tried from the start to bring in her mix of tempo changes, slice and stops, knowing full well that she would not survive an exchange of blows with the power of Muguruza. At first she felt little of nervousness.
The 21-year-old came after a sovereign 1-0 to a 0:30 serve Muguruza, which held, but then found in her groove and made her first break. It was meanwhile 4: 2 for the two-time major winner from Spain, who then put in two weak games, but picked up again at 4: 4. Muguruza played controlled offensive and kept moving up when it turned out - strong 10 out of 14 points made her on the net in set one, Kenin made 15 mistakes without need.
In run two she minimized this. Kenin broke 3-1 when she took the offensive, another break she managed to win 6-2. There were only four mistakes without need in the entire set for the world rankings 15th, which did not allow anything on their own serve; Muguruza, however, spread more and showed problems on the first serve - only 43 percent accommodated them in the field. And had to be treated briefly on the back after the sentence.
Kenin gets impatient - but then hits
Muguruza gathered, while Kenin - despite the sentence equalization - seemed impatient and was annoyed both by mistakes and by points won and apparently felt that she had to pull away quickly. Kenin was actually the better one at the time; Muguruza, the more experienced, but remained calm.
At 2: 2 she finally came to 0:40; Kenin got hectic now, Muguruza defended strongly. But Kenin followed three winners and an ace, played the Spaniard cleverly on the net and made the important 3-2. In return, Muguruza did not use a 40:15 to equalize, with a double mistake she finally gave Kenin the break to 4: 2.
Kenin then served 5-2, Muguruza did not use two balls to rank and ended up serving her eighth double mistake to win Kenin.
Muguruza uses only 2 out of 12 break chances
45 unforced mistakes ended up being too much for Muguruza, who could only use 2 of their 12 break chances in the entire match. Kenin was the coolest here with a yield of 5 breaks on 6 occasions. With only 31 percent of second serve wins, Muguruza was significantly behind in another crucial category.
"I'll keep it short, I'm very emotional," said a disappointed Muguruza at the award ceremony and congratulated Kenin on her strong final. "I'm sure there will be more to come."
"If you have a dream, follow it. Then it can come true," said Kenin, who will move into the top 10 of the tennis world for the first time on Monday. "Those were the two best weeks in my life."
The match to read in the live ticker!
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