Muguruza beat Anett Kontaveit 6-3, 7-5 in the final for her
first title at the WTA’s elite, season-ending championships.
She became the oldest champion at 28 since Serena Williams
in 2014, and finishes the season at No. 3 in the rankings, her best performance
since 2017, when she was No. 1.
Before the tournament, Muguruza took a 37-mile
(60-kilometer) ride to Tequila, a small town outside of Guadalajara where the
popular spirit is produced.
“I went to the town, did a tasting. I need to do this before
because when I win ...” Muguruza said. “We’re (now) going to have some tequila,
have fun, lose all the tension we’ve been having and holding. I th ink the
whole team deserves it.”
Muguruza became the first Spaniard to win the WTA Finals.
The first person she celebrated with was coach Conchita Martinez.
The new champion won back-to-back titles in Monterrey in
northern Mexico in 2018 and 2019, and her past successes drove her to qualify
for the WTA Finals.
“The whole year with my team I was saying to them, ‘It’s in
Mexico, we have to make it, c’mon.’ It was my biggest motivation,” Muguruza
said.
All week, she was backed by the locals at Estadio Akron, and
reciprocated by wearing a Mexico soccer jersey for her last two matches.
“My manager, Oliver, he was like, ’You know what, for the
first time Garbiñe, you’re really using the crowd, really getting that energy
and using it on the court. You should do that more often,” Muguruza said.
“A big lesson to me is I should get the energy from the
environment. I’m very supported here in Mexico. I don’t know if it will be
everywhere, but I used it this week for sure.”
Kontaveit will finish the year at No. 7. The Estonian
qualified last for the WTA Finals by winning 29 of 32 matches, including four
titles in 10 weeks.
She was broken only four times going into the final, but
lost her serve five times to Muguruza.
The Spaniard made three breaks in the first set. Kontaveit
played better in the second and got a break in the ninth game, but Muguruza
broke her next two serves to win it.
Earlier, Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova defeated
Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens 6-3, 6-4 to win the doubles title undefeated.
Krejcikova and Siniakova won at Roland Garros, Madrid, and
the Tokyo Olympics.
“We needed to stay aggressive, and we did it,” said
Siniakova, who finished the season No. 1 in the doubles rankings.
The WTA Finals were played in Guadalajara for this year
only, with the event scheduled to return in 2022 to Shenzhen, China.
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