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For the better part of the last decade, fans at Roland Garros would’ve been accustomed to hearing Spain’s national anthem after seeing one of their players win the French Open title.
This time, it wasn’t for nine-time men’s champion Rafael Nadal, but rather, women’s fourth seed Garbine Muguruza, who in her first clay court final would win her first grand slam title by defeating the mighty Serena Williams in straight sets.
The victory caps off a two-year rise up the ranks of women’s tennis, which started with the 22-year-old Spaniard upsetting the American in the second round of the French Open in 2014.
Since then she continued to go from strength to strength, rapidly rising up the rankings, reaching her first grand slam final at Wimbledon and winning what was to that point her biggest career title in Beijing, all last year.
And after a slow start to this season, which included losing in the third round of the Australian Open, Muguruza has now won her first major title, becoming the first female Spanish champion at this level since Arantxa Sanchez Vicario won the last of her four grand slam titles at Roland Garros 18 years ago.
It was never going to be easy coming up against Serena Williams, who has won 21 grand slam singles titles and was attempting for the third time to equal Steffi Graf in second place on the grand slam leaderboard with 22.
The American started strongly, holding her first service game to love and the opening set remained on serve before the 34-year-old carelessly double-faulted in the fifth game to give Muguruza an early break.
The Spaniard would then consolidate for 4-2 before losing three straight games to fall to 5-4, before breaking again en route to taking the opening set 7-5, requiring four set points and overcoming four double faults in the set to do so.
At this point, if Williams was going to win, she would have had to come from a set down. Not since the 2005 Australian Open, when she came from behind to defeat then-world No.1 Lindsay Davenport in three sets, had she done so.
And it didn’t look like she would do so on this occasion when she coughed up a break in the opening game of the second set, but, showing all the qualities that had seen her win eight of her 21 major titles in the last four years, she broke back immediately for 1-all in the second set.
But then Muguruza would break again for 2-1 in the very next game and from there she would not be headed, though she would nearly lose her lead by way of five double faults, following on from four in the opening set.
Eventually she would earn four championship points on Williams’ serve in the ninth game but the American would save them all, hold and then all the pressure would be put on Muguruza as she looked to serve it out.
The 22-year-old Spaniard finished it off in style, winning on her fifth championship point with a lob shot that landed on the line behind Williams.
While Muguruza becomes the first female player from her country to win the French Open since Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in 1998, she also follows in the footsteps of her fellow compatriots Albert Costa, Juan Carlos Ferrero and of course Rafael Nadal, who collectively have reigned at Roland Garros eleven times since 2002.
She also becomes the third consecutive first-time Grand Slam female champion, following on from Flavia Pennetta (2015 US Open) and Angelique Kerber (2016 Australian Open), and only the second player of any gender born in the 1990s (after dual Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova) to achieve the ultimate success.
For her coach Sam Sumyk, it is his third Grand Slam title after previously coaching Victoria Azarenka to her two Australian Open titles in 2012 and 2013.
On the other hand, Serena Williams’ grand slam tally will remain stalled on 21 for at least another month, but with Wimbledon just around the corner, she will fancy her chances of equalling Steffi Graf’s record of 22 major titles there.
It will remain to be seen whether she can win another major title, given she has succumbed to the pressure of expectations for the third grand slam title in a row and will turn 35 in September.
To finish off, congratulations to Garbine Muguruza, the 2016 French Open champion, and may this be the first of many major titles going forward.
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