Top seed Garbine Muguruza has won her first title of the season by edging out Timea Babos in the final of the Monterrey Open in Mexico.
The world No.3 was trailing the match by a set and a break before fighting her way back to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, after almost two-and-a-half hours of play. The roller coaster encounter saw Muguruza win just two more points than her opponent in the entire match. Hitting 22 winners to 34 unforced errors. In comparison Babos, who won the title back in 2012, was also able to illustrate some of her best play with the help of 30 winners, but came unstuck with her error count of 34.
“To tell you the truth it was a difficult match, Timea has been playing very well,” Muguruza said after the match. “I started playing a little better and finished 6-4 in the second set, and it gave me more life to fight for the third set. Little by little I was playing better, getting better too. It was frustrating in some moments, it’s a final. It is one of the matches that you leave satisfied from.”
The success in Mexico gives Muguruza her first WTA title since Cincinnati last August. During what has been a mixed started to the year she also reached the final of the Qatar Open, but was denied the trophy by Petra Kvitova. She has now improved her year-to-date win-loss record to 13-6.
“After a couple of tournaments that didn’t really go my way, I’m relieved to get a win here in the last week.” She told wtatennis.com.
Muguruza heads into the clay season with a confidence boost. She has now claimed a total of six WTA titles so far in her career, but only one of those has occurred on the clay when she won the 2016 French Open. She will start her campaign later this month at the Stuttgart Open in what will be her fifth appearance at the event. She is yet to progress beyond the quarter-finals in Germany.
“I’m happy to be finished with the hard court season for now and winning a title here in Monterrey was a great way to finish it,” Muguruza concluded.
“Now I’m excited to go back on clay courts because it’s my home surface. I’m looking forward to playing Fed Cup and starting fresh on a different surface.”
In their head-to-head, the Spaniard now leads Babos 5-0 following their latest clash on the tour.
