Driven, Garbiñe Muguruza wins a title

Garbiñe Muguruza is finally back, playing excellent ball, smacking her forehand and backhand, cracking her first serve, and hustling. In Dubai, she overcame Barbora Krejcikova 7-6(6), 6-3 in the final. After reaching the Australian Open last year, she was up and down, mostly down. Her achievement of winning two Grand Slams might have clouded her ability to focus and she would space out. Or she was frustrated, and disappointed. The Czech looks pretty good, but she has to improve her serve.

But, at the start in January, she locked in. Yes, in the finals, she can overanxious, which is why she had not won a title in more than two years.

However, but on Saturday, Muguruza claimed her eighth title. She is driven. This year in the Yarra Valley Classic she beat Sofia Kenin, Marketa Vondrousova and in the final, she lost to No. 1 Ash Barty. At the Australian Open, in the round of 16, she lost against the great Naomi Osaka 7-5 in the third. It was very intense. The same thing happened when Muguruza reached the final at the Qatar Total Open, but she was gone, when Petra Kvitova destroyed her.

In 2020 and 2021, when she lost, she was totally out of it. But now, over the past two-and-a-half months, the Spaniard is playing stellar. She is impulsive. Here it is: can she win another Grand Slam this year? Perhaps, as long as she continues to step up and build on her recent successes.

The Canadian Eugenie Bouchard is now ranked 144. She is in the final in Guadalajara. She has had some bad years, and maybe she will never come back into the top-10, but let’s see if she reach the top 50.

Some good quotes by Sania Mirza. She has always been a really nice, and smart, person. She gave birth to her son in 2018.

“The other thing is that, which is something that’s very close to my heart, I feel that there are a lot of young girls and women who look up to me or look up to us, and I feel that when there is people like Serena, there are so many mothers now playing on the tour, and I just feel like, especially on our side of the world, women sort of think that once they have a baby, life’s kind of over. But it’s not. You don’t have to crush your dreams because you have a child. You can still go after them.

Mirza and Andreja Klepac advanced to the Qatar semis in doubles.

Mirza’s former doubles partner, Elena Vesnina, is also returning to the tour after becoming a mom. Playing with Laura Siegemund, Vesnina got to the quarterfinals.