It’s a special first for Garbiñe Muguruza…
The 22-year-old Spanish/Venezuelan tennis player defeated American Shelby Rogers 7-5, 6-3 in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros to reach her first French Open semifinal.
To earn a place in her second Grand Slam final, Muguruza will face off against 2010 finalist Samantha Stosur.
Rogers, this year’s Cinderella story at the French, confidently broke Muguruza in the opening game. She quickly consolidated the break at love to open up a 2-0 lead before Muguruza responded with a hold at love of her own to reduce the deficit to a single break. This pattern continued for the majority of the set, with chances for the receiver to break coming few and far between.
But, Muguruza earned herself her first break points of the match in the eighth game but failed to convert as Rogers held firm, eventually going on to hold for a 5-3 lead. With her back against the wall once again, the No. 4 seed produced the goods, holding at love to force the world number 108 to serve for a one-set advantage.
In a crucial ninth game, Rogers was able to come within a point of taking the opening set, but Muguruza refused to back down. After hitting a big backhand winner down set point, Muguruza reeled off another three points in a row to break back in the knick of time.
With the score tied at 5-all, it was clear that Muguruza had found her rhythm. With some of the ball striking that earned her a place in last year’s Wimbledon final, Muguruza promptly held to love, before sneaking away with the opening set moments later, winning it 7-5.
In the second set, Muguruza showed no signs of slowing down; a hold at love promptly followed by a break to 15 putting her a set and 2-0 to the good. Despite Rogers’ best efforts to fight back, Muguruza managed to stay in control to win the second set 6-3.
“I feel great,” the Spaniard said in her post-match press conference. “Previous years, you know, I end the tournament in quarterfinals. This year I really wanted to, you know, go through. I think it’s great.