It has been a dream run for Garbine Muguruza at The Championships at Wimbledon and Serena Williams’ dream of a Calendar Grand Slam is still alive. Not many people had anticipated this matchup for the final. Serena was the clear favourite for most. But several weaknesses were witnessed in her game especially in her third round match against local favourite Heather Watson. At one point in that match, Watson was serving for the match. But Serena held her nerve and broke the serve to stay in the match and eventually emerge as the winner. Garbine Muguruza’s run to the semifinals has also been very tough as she had to come through three matches that were decided in the third set. But she has shown glimpses of her best tennis in beating Kerber, Wozniacki and Bacsinszky. In her quarterfinal match against Radwanska, she overcame a second set fightback from Radwanska as well as nerves of her own to save a break point while serving for the match and reach the first Grand Slam final of her career.
Coming into the final, Serena has spent 9 hours 7 minutes on
the court while Muguruza has spent 10 hours and 27 minutes. So Serena will come
into the final more refreshed and thus will have a much better chance if the
match goes to three sets. Moreover, Serena has done much better with her first
serve, winning 78.3% points. The following two charts depict her first serve
edge over Muguruza.
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| Serena vs Muguruza: Aces and Double Faults |
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| Serena vs Muguruza: First serve analysis |
At 21 years of age, as Muguruza goes on to face one of the
greatest players of all time in her first grand slam final, she has got nothing
to lose and should play aggressively as she has played all over the tournament.
Muguruza has made 145 visits to the net compared to Serena’s 80. That is almost
1.6 times (after considering that Muguruza has played much more points than
Serena) that of Serena. Both Serena and Muguruza have put extreme pressure on
their opponent’s serve, winning about 46% receiving points.
So, while both are evenly matched in their return statistics
and Garbine has a slight edge in net play, Serena’s service is much more
efficient than Muguruza, which can be the deciding factor in the final.
Although Muguruza has got a great game and can unsettle Serena for some time,
her serve is just too weak to beat Serena.
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