By Chris Oddo | Monday May 23, 2016
4th-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza came through a difficult battle with Anna Karolina Schmiedlova to reach the second round on Monday in Paris.
Photo Source: Julian Finney/Getty
An ugly win is as good as a pretty win in tennis—it’s only the end result that matters. That’s good news for Spain’s Garbiñe Muguruza. The 4th seed survived a sketchy two and a half hour battle with Anna Karolina Schmiedlova on Monday, eventually notching a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 win to book passage into the second round.
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Muguruza, a quarterfinalist in Paris for the last two years, tossed in 22 unforced errors to drop a shaky first set to the Slovakian. She rebounded in the second set, saving nine break points to hold in the opening game, but never truly found her form.
After closing out the second set and racing out to a 4-0 lead in the decider, Muguruza let Schmiedlova crawl back into the match at 4-3. The 22-year-old eventually took the final two games, breaking for the match as a Schmiedlova backhand sailed wide to book a second-round encounter with Myrtille Goerges of France.
Muguruza finished with 44 winners and 53 unforced errors, and finished the day having saved 17 of 21 break points.
Schmiedlova has had a difficult 2016. She drops to 3-14 on the season with two of those wins coming in Fed Cup. She has only picked up one win in tournament play and has been bounced in the first round of both majors in 2016.
In other early action on Day 2 at Roland Garros, American Sloane Stephens picked up a 6-4, 6-3 win over Russian’s Margarita Gasparyan. Stephens has reached the round of 16 in each of the last four years. She improves to 13-5 lifetime at Roland Garros with the win.
Other winners on Monday include Barbora Stryocova (d. Hradecka), Polona Hercog (d. Dominguez Lino), Naomi Osaka (d. Ostapenko), and Svetlana Kuznetsova (d. Shvedova).