Muguruza makes it past Makarova in Beijing

BEIJING, China - No.14 seed Garbine Muguruza is back to her winning ways at the China Open, winning in straight sets against the always-dangerous Ekaterina Makarova to move into the second round.

Muguruza, the 2015 Beijing champion, came into the tournament looking to recover the form she had found last week in Wuhan. After dropping a combined five games across her first two matches - her first back-to-back victories since the French Open semifinals - Muguruza was stunned in the third round by Katerina Siniakova in straight sets, despite holding a 5-1 lead in the first.

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But up against Makarova in Beijing, Muguruza looked nearly untouchable once again as she dished out her third bagel set in four matches. The Spaniard didn’t do much wrong as she powered to take the opening set, getting on scoreboard early and playing aggressively against a sluggish Makarova to break for a 2-0 lead, then backed it up at 4-0 as the Russian’s racquet continued to leak unforced errors. A final break and a Muguruza service game to love sealed the set for the Spaniard in just 25 minutes.

She carried that momentum into the second set, where Muguruza won eight of ten points to build up a 2-0 lead. Makarova did well to avoid the double bagel and get on the scoreboard at 2-1 with a confident hold to love. But despite the effort to keep pace with the two-time Grand Slam champion, Makarova found herself break points down in her next service game after back-to-back double faults before Muguruza finally earned the second break at 5-2 to close in on the finish line.

But that’s when things started to get a bit complicated for the Spaniard, as Makarova saved four match points and turned around a 0-40 deficit to break Muguruza and extend her stay in the match. She refused to fade for the next two games, even holding two break points that would have leveled the score at 5-5, but Muguruza finally converted her seventh match point to claim the win in an hour and 15 minutes.

Up next in the second round, Muguruza will face a tough task as she takes on the on-fire Aryna Sabalenka for the first time. Sabalenka won the biggest title of her career last week in Wuhan, dropping just two sets the entire tournament.   

More to follow...