French Open: Garbine Muguruza Enters Final, Sets Up Clash With Serena Williams
Garbine Muguruza became the first Spanish player after Conchita Martinez in 2000 to enter the final of the French Open and she will play top-seed Serena Williams for the title.
Highlights
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Garbine Muguruza defeated Samantha Stosur 6-2,6-4.
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Muguruza became first Spanish player to enter final after 16 years.
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Arantxa Sanchez Vicario was last Spanish player to win title in 1998.
Fourth seed Garbine Muguruza became the first Spanish woman in 16 years to reach the French Open final with a 6-2, 6-4 defeat of Australian veteran Samantha Stosur on Friday.
Muguruza, 22, will face world number one Serena Williiams, who beat her in last year's Wimbledon final
Conchita Martinez was the last Spaniard to get to the Roland Garros final in 2000 when she lost to Mary Pierce while Arantxa Sanchez Vicario was the country's last champion in 1998.
"Emotions can sometimes be bad when you make a final," said Muguruza who will be playing in just her second Slam final in Saturday.
"Sometimes you just have to stay calm, prepare youself as best you can and play with no regrets."
With the Suzanne Lenglen court barely half-full, Muguruza shrugged off the ghostly atmosphere as well as the bone-jarring 13 degrees to race into a 4-0 lead.
The Australian, 10 years older and the 2010 runner-up, won just six points in that early blitz before she got on the board with a service hold in the fifth game.
But the 6ft (1.82m) Venezuelan-born Muguruza continued to dominate, sweeping the first set in 32 minutes.
There were was no let-up in the second set as the 22-year-old Spaniard broke for 1-0 and held a love service game to go to 2-0.
Stosur rallied for a break back, but Muguruza retrieved it immediately for 3-2 on the back of unrelenting, deep and flat hitting.
Muguruza, a quarter-finalist in the last two years, carved out a fifth break of the match for 5-2 after a sixth double-fault by Stosur.
The fourth seed stumbled when she served for the match, allowing her opponent to cut the deficit to 4-5 but was rock-solid at the second attempt.
She claimed victory on a first match point when Stosur fired a service return into the net.
Muguruza lost the first set of her opening round in Paris to Slovakia's Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
But since then, she has been untroubled, winning all of her matches in straight sets, including seeing off 2009 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the fourth round.
For Stosur, playing in a first semi-final at the majors since 2012, it was a match too far having seen off fellow former runners-up Simona Halep and Lucie Safarova earlier in the tournament.
But she is likely to have the consolation of a return to the world's top 15 next week.