IN a real turn of events at the 2020 Australian Open, unseeded Garbine Muguruza reigned supreme over Simona Halep in a straight sets victory, 7-6 7-5. In a tight match, the fourth seed was unable to compete with Muguruza’s tenacity and serve, and while Halep was cleaner it just was not her day out on the court.

Garbine put every bit of strength behind her in this matchup, winning the first set tiebreaker 10-8. It was a relatively even first set with neither player able to find much purchase, winning their serves at a respective 72 per cent (Halep) and 75 per cent (Muguruza), seeing the Spaniard just barely scrape control on her serve, only winning off 35 per cent of his second serve. It was the lack of break point wins for Halep that was the flaw in the plan, only winning one break point from six opportunities compared to Muguruza’s one from three, with Muguruza also winning nine net points at 60 per cent to Halep’s zero. It was Muguruza’s whopping 18 winners that saw her break through for the first set victory, although her 29 first set unforced errors do not bode well for the Grand Slam final.

Muguruza hit seven aces in the second set to really control the match, running away scot free without a tiebreaker to win the match. Muguruza may have lost some of her serve point rating in the second set but relegated Halep to just a 53 per cent winning rate off her first serve. Muguruza cleaned up her act with only 15 unforced errors in the second, while creating a tougher battle for Halep who seemed to relinquish control with just 24 unforced errors for the match. With the stats fairly even, Muguruza was clinical and efficient with her victory, with a better and more consistent serve than Halep, averaging 164kmh and peaking at 178kmh compared to Halep’s 152kmh average.

Overall, Muguruza hit 39 winners for the match for 90 total points won, compared to 87 from Halep, pushing past the fourth seed in the heat. Muguruza heads into her fourth Grand Slam final, hoping to round out her collection of titles with a hard court win to add to her clay and grass victories in 2016/17 – both which came against Williams sisters.