French Open Champion, Garbine Muguruza, is out of Wimbledon after a shock 6-3, 6-2 defeat to World No. 124 Jana Cepelova. Whilst the nature of the defeat is alarming, it should not come as a surprise that last year’s runner up is exiting the competition early.
Despite making it all the way to the final in 2015, Muguruza has always struggled on grass. Whilst the Spaniard did play well during the two weeks, the 22 year old was dealt with a fairly kind draw that failed to exploit her weaknesses on the surface.
Barring Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, Muguruza faced defensive players such as Angelique Kerber, Caroline Wozniacki, and Agnieszka Radwanska on her way to the final. There was nobody who could expose her struggles with movement on the surface, nobody who could make her rush, unlike this year.
When the draw was made, the Roland Garros champion was pitted as a contender for an early exit. This year her draw was littered with dangerous heavy hitters, players who could expose her weaknesses on grass, and that is precisely what happened.
Muguruza did well to overcome Camila Giorgi in the first round. The Italian is a very aggressive and heavy hitter who likes grass, but her inconsistency let her down in the end. Cepelova on the other hand remained consistent and managed to advance to the third round rather easily.
Some people may wonder why Muguruza struggles so much on grass. After all she is a big hitter, and the faster surface should suit her game, but it is the little things that hold her back.
Movement is particularly an issue as she clearly lacks confidence with it. She is not the first big hitter to struggle with her movement on grass, and she will not be the last. The Spaniard is a big girl who carries a lot of weight, so movement in general has been an issue. The fact she grew up on clay means that this problem is lessened on the dirt, but on grass the struggles are clear to see.
Secondly, Muguruza takes big swings at the ball to generate her power. The grass means there is extra pace on the ball, forcing the Spaniard to rush her strokes. The low bounce also takes the ball out of her strike zone. These factors mean that she fails to generate the power she relies on and renders a lot of her shots helpless.
Her struggles on grass can be compared to those of Stan Wawrinka. The Swiss suffers with the same problems as Muguruza and has struggled himself on the grass. Both players as a result must rely heavily on their first serves to win matches.
One additional factor that can not be ignored is the new pressure of being a Grand Slam champion. Having only been crowned as Queen of Roland Garros less than a month ago, Muguruza has not had long to settle into the life of being a major champion. There is an extra pressure as you are now the hunted rather than the hunter. The weight of expectation grows not only with the public and the media, but also with the players themselves.
A 3 and 2 defeat to a player ranked outside the top 100 is indeed a shock result for the World No. 2. All credit must go to Cepelova who played an excellent match to claim her biggest career victory to date. However, Muguruza exiting SW19 early is no surprise due to the factors mentioned above. She will now look to recover and prepare herself for the Rio Olympics before the US Open where she will look to add to her collection of achievements.
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