Zimpapers Logo

Garbine Muguruza

LONDON. — Garbine Muguruza, the second seed and French Open champion, was knocked out of Wimbledon in the second round yesterday, losing 6-3, 6-2 to Slovak qualifier Jana Cepelova.

Spanish 22-year-old Muguruza, the runner-up to Serena Williams at the All England Club last year, sank to defeat against the world number 124 in just 59 minutes.

Cepelova, who knocked out Simona Halep when the Romanian was ranked three at last year’s Wimbledon also on Court One, faces Czech 28th seed Lucie Safarova for a place in the last 16.

Muguruza was bidding to become only the eighth woman to win the French Open and Wimbledon back to back.

A clinical Simona Halep wasted no time in reaching the third round, cruising past Italian veteran Francesca Schiavone 6-1 6-1 in just over an hour.

Showing glimpses of the form that took her to an All England Club semifinal in 2014 and to world number two last year, the fifth-seeded Romanian had too much power and court craft for her 111th-ranked opponent.

Halep controlled much of the play with pinpoint ground-strokes, dominating the baseline rallies and often finding winning passing shots when her 36-year-old opponent varied her game by coming to the net.

Troubled in recent months by an Achilles injury that forced her withdrawal from the Birmingham event in mid-June, Halep was playing only her second grasscourt match of the season.

Her record at Wimbledon remains mixed. With the exception of 2014, she has previously got no further than the second round in four attempts.

Halep next faces 26th-ranked Kiki Bertens, who this month became the first Dutchwoman in almost half a century to reach the French Open semifinals.

A time violation warning, a few spots of rain and the thunderous ground-strokes of her rival could not throw Venus Williams off her long-limbed stride as she reached the third round with a 7-5 4-6 6-3 win over Greek qualifier Maria Sakkari.

Playing an opponent who was not even aged three when she won the first of her seven grand slam titles at Wimbledon in 2000, Williams proved that it would take more than mere determination to topple the American eighth seed.

Barring a loss to an unranked Kim Clijsters at the 2009 US Open, Williams had not lost to a player ranked outside the world’s top 100 at a grand slam this century.

World number 115 Sakkari’s hopes of ending that run gathered momentum when she broke the 36-year-old three times in the second set.

But Williams, who dropped her serve in the seventh game of the first set after incurring a time violation warning for switching rackets, was back into her groove in the third set and set up a meeting with Russian Daria Kasatkina.

Madison Keys, the woman tipped as the most likely American successor to the Williams sisters, powered to a 6-4 4-6 6-3 victory against Kirsten Flipkens in the second round.

The ninth seed, a quarter-finalist last year, suffered a second-set blip against the experienced Belgian, and wavered again late on having roared into a 5-0 lead in the decider.

But she managed to nip the Flipkens comeback in the bud and will face Italy’s 20th seed Sara Errani or Frenchwoman Alize Cornet in the next round. — Reuters/AFP.