WHAT HAPPENED: Garbiñe Muguruza arrived fashionably late to the summer tennis party, playing only her second match of the US Open Series Monday in the first round of the US Open. Despite spending part of the summer training in California, the No. 12 seed didn’t appear in a main draw until mid-August, in Cincinnati, where she lost in the first round as the defending champion. The rust showed in a tense start to her match against China’s Shuai Zhang, ranked No. 34. The two traded service breaks and a barrage of deep groundstrokes, matching each other’s flat power. Neither player could gain any momentum, however, as both made their share of unforced errors. The turning point came at 3-3, when Muguruza made a rare change of pace with a drop shot and then a backhand volley to the middle of the court. Both were gettable, but drew errors from Zhang. The top-ranked Chinese player then sprayed a few errors to hand the Spaniard a third break and the set. Muguruza aired out her groundstrokes in the second set and added more margin for error, cutting down on the unforced mistakes and finding the corners with her backhand down the line. She ended the match with 20 winners and 14 unforced errors, compared to Zhang’s 14-19 ratio. The final score, 6-3, 6-0, was deceptive. "It was a very intense match," Muguruza said. "The result, especially in the second set, doesn't match how tough it was for both of us."
WHAT IT MEANS: Is Muguruza back? Not so fast. Her up-and-down year has been more down lately. After her dominating 6-2, 6-1 victory over Maria Sharapova at the French Open, she got bounced early from two tournaments she had won in 2017 -- Wimbledon, where she lost in the second round this year, and the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, where she went out in the opener. Both defeats came at the hands of players ranked barely inside the top 50. Between those events, she skipped the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic in San Jose and the Rogers Cup in Montreal with an arm injury. Monday, she played her way into form against a hard-hitting opponent, but her first serve was shaky -- just 54 percent. In the hardest quarter of the draw, that might not be good enough. A couple of factors are in her favor. One, she isn't playing with the burden of expectation. "I feel like I'm trying to be realistic, not trying to set tough goals, even though I always expect to go out there and perform well," she said. And two, she has vastly more experience than her next opponent, No. 202–ranked qualifier Karolina Muchova.
MATCH POINT: Is Muguruza the favorite in her quarter now that No. 1 seed Simona Halep went out in the first round, or does that honor belong to No. 17 seed Serena Williams?
