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Garbine Muguruza had some rust to shake off but notched up a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 victory over Saisai Zheng at the BNL Internazionali D’Italia Monday. It was the third consecutive win for Muguruza against the Chinese star.
The 25-year-old Muguruza is desperately looking for some claycourt match practice after an early exit in her home country last week. Zheng on the other hand went out in the round of 16 in Madrid.
She matched the Spaniard in her opening service game and soon got a break in the third. Muguruza committed her first double fault that allowed the game to slip away and give Zheng the lead.
The Chinese star struck a superb backhand in the fourth game that helped her consolidate the break. Muguruza then worked really hard to ensure sure that she held serve in the fifth to stay in touch on the scoreboard.
At 2-3 Muguruza called coach Sam Sumyk down to the court who told her she need to add a little more pace and intensity to gain back control. That's exactly what she did next game, and she was also helped by errors from Zheng as she broke back to level the score at three-all.
The Spaniard struggled to hold serve in the game after that until an error from Zheng enabled her to get out of a jam and take the lead back. She then brought her aggressive best to the fore as she broke to love in the eighth game and served for the set.
Muguruza wasted no time gaining set points against Zheng before closing it out in 41 minutes. Despite having a low first serve percentage, the Spaniard managed to win enough points off the ground; she also saved five of six break points in that set.
Muguruza started the second set by breaking Zheng but was broken back immediately. That was the start of a long streak of breaks between the players as neither could hold serve.
It was nine consecutive breaks in the set that saw Muguruza serving for the match at 5-4. The Spaniard hit some penetrating shots to achieve match point, but double faulted to bring Zheng to deuce.
The world number 19 made went ahead again with a great smash. A second match point was all that she needed to lock it down; a wide return from Zheng ended the match in 1 hour and 37 minutes.
Muguruza now awaits the winner between American Danielle Collins and the 12th seeded Caroline Wozniacki.
