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Garbine Muguruza didn’t stand a chance at getting deep in her round of 16 match at the Australian Open Monday. The skills of Karolina Pliskova who has been her toughest opponent brought the 17th seed to defeat in a 6-3, 6-1 score on Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park. The win gave the world number seven her third consecutive advance to the quarterfinals.
This was the first time the two since their four-match war in 2017 where Pliskova took three out of four against the Spaniard. It gave the Czech a bigger gap in the series with her success on the hard court standing out most. Both have had at least one match go the distance but for Muguruza, her path gave her better focus to deal with the opponent’s set to her feet.
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After a grueling match against Johanna Konta late at night, the 25-year-old took care of Timea Bacsinszky to prepare for an even bigger opponent than any before. Pliskova slipped up early in her last two matches but the comeback she built was more than strong enough to get her across the finish line smoothly. She’ll hope that her tenth match with Muguruza goes just as smooth to make it back to the quarterfinals for a third straight time.
She made a statement early with a serve to love of the Spaniard to begin the set. The 18th seed fell behind but rallied to deuce where she held the first break. The players then went on a short term run of breaking one another through to the fourth getting a feeling of their talents. Pliskova went right back to nailing her second serve to love against Muguruza setting the bar high. The Spaniard used her forehand winners to battle against the Czech which went to deuce but was able to keep in tow on the scoreboard.
The 26-year-old didn’t want to maintain any complacency with Muguruza and vied for a break in the eighth where she gained plenty of AD point chances to win it on a ball landing just inside the baseline. With the 5-3 lead, the seventh seed went for the set pressuring the Spaniard who committed her tenth double fault to start the game. It gave Pliskova a cakewalk to three sets winning it in 36 minutes to lead the match. The sustainability showed in the set where she outscored Muguruza 34-19 while only making one unforced error through ten games.
With the grip in the match, the Czech wanted to keep her opponent down and did so with the momentum scoring a break to begin the second. She made it 2-0 before Muguruza responded but it was an uphill battle for a second. Pliskova continued to show her relaxation on serve firing the heat at Muguruza who struggled to get into serious contention.
Her chances slipped away quickly as the Czech reached 5-1 with another double break in hand. She played for the match getting well ahead on the score where a return from the Spaniard brought a close to her tournament in one hour.
Pliskova kept her first serve well above 75 percent winning 23 of 28 from it. The 23 winners and just three unforced errors made it a tremendous victory for the 26-year-old. She outscored Muguruza 58-29 leaving a lot to be said about her next matchup. She would find out if she would take on world number one Simona Halep or former world number one Serena Williams on Wednesday.
