Muguruza can’t stand the heat, pushes Wozniacki into Miami quarterfinals

1
Wilson Blade 9

Sixth seed Garbine Muguruza pulled out of the Miami Open midway through her fourth-round match against seed No.12 Caroline Wozniacki, citing a heat-related illness.

The first set between the Spaniard and the Dane was a close 70-minute battle, full of momentum swings. Muguruza even served for the set and then as she wasted that opportunity she saved a set point in the following game to force a tiebreak, which Wozniacki dominated. After the set, Muguruza realized that she couldn’t play any more, feeling dizzy and generally unwell, so she retired from the match, while Wozniacki, interestingly, absolutely focused on her own game, never noticed her opponent’s health problems, aside from one point when Muguruza didn’t run for the ball.

Wozniacki’s quarterfinal obstacle will be Lucie Safarova, who advanced by beating fourth seed Dominika Cibulkova for her first Top 10 victory in two years. The Czech won 7-6(5) 6-1 and while the score suggests that the sets were absolutely different, the second set was just one minute shorter than the first one, as four of those seven games went to deuce.

Second seed Karolina Pliskova is also through to the quarterfinals, having eliminated fellow Czech and 15th seed Barbora Strycova 6-1 6-4. In the short first set, Pliskova won 11 consecutive points at one point and 16 of 17 points on her serve! However, her serve was below par in both sets, as she got only 49% of first serves in. Pliskova will next face Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who backed up her upset of 2012 champion Agnieszka Radwanska with a 7-5 6-4 victory over Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Top seed Angelique Kerber needed a little over an hour to defeat Japanese qualifier Risa Ozaki 6-2 6-2 in the fourth round. (photo: Jimmie48)

1 COMMENT

  1. Caro is really playing well the past few weeks. She’ll be back in the Top 10 for sure. She’s one of my favorite defensive players. She’s really changing and improving her game. She’s fitter and much more athletic now than ever before. I can see her as a potential first time slam winner this year along with Kaja Pliskova.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here