Venus Williams defeated world number eight Garbiñe Muguruza 6-3, 3-0 by retirement in the final of the 2015 Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open. This victory marks Williams’ 47th career WTA singles title, which comes just days after she captured her 700th WTA singles win. The seven-time Grand Slam champion will also climb 12 spots in the rankings to number 12 in the world next Monday.

Reviewing Williams and Muguruza’s Semifinal Wins and Injuries

At a quarter past three in the afternoon at the Optics Valley International Tennis Centre, a jam-packed Chinese crowd filled with adoring tennis fans were eager to watch the final between a legend and a rising star of the game. Coming into this match, a lot was expected from both women but there were also some questions surrounding the players. After winning their respective semifinals less than 24 hours ago, both Williams and Muguruza were struggling with injuries.

The 35-year-old has played a lot of tennis this week and since she has Sjogren’s Syndrome, she was bound to feel some fatigue whether it’d be mentally or physically. Towards the end of her match against Roberta Vinci, Williams was seen limping, and later confirmed to the press that she had been struggling with a leg injury. Her opponent, Garbiñe Muguruza, has played a lot of tennis in the last two weeks in Tokyo and Wuhan. Coming into the Asian swing, the Spaniard failed to back up her impressive run to the Wimbledon final, but began to find her form in Japan and China. Given that she couldn’t win many matches and didn’t play too much tennis on a regular basis during the Emirates Airline U.S. Open Series, she was inevitably going to feel fatigued when playing both singles and doubles on back-to-back days.

During her semifinal match against Angelique Kerber, Muguruza began to feel pain in her ankle, the same ankle that she had to undergo surgery to repair in 2013. However, the Spanish number one powered through to defeat Kerber in straight sets. When you look at the head-to-head series between Williams and Muguruza, the American has got the edge — she led 2-0 coming into this final. As you would expect, this match was highly anticipated for different reasons.

Williams Gets Crucial Break to Win Opening Set

The match began with both players playing really well. Since they’re both flat and aggressive hitters, both women were looking to get the first strike to shorten the points as much as possible. Before the match, Williams got both of her thighs taped, and Muguruza had some taping under the ankle brace on both ankles. Muguruza moved better in the opening exchanges, and Williams’ ginger and lethargic movement gave the Spaniard to dictate most of the early exchanges.

With some big hitting, it was Muguruza who drew first blood in this final, breaking in the opening game. Williams, who hasn’t been 100 percent for most of the week, pushed through her last two matches against Johanna Konta and Roberta Vinci, and she wasn’t ready to give up this match any time soon either. She responded with a break of her own to draw level at a game apiece. From there, both women looked to have settled any nerves that were present in the opening two games, and that was when it looked like this match could shape up to be the match most people expected it to be. Despite a few streaky patches, Williams and Muguruza were able to hold their service games relatively comfortably until the American had another look at a break of serve.

Up 3-2 with Muguruza serving, Williams was able to use her experience and class to play the important points better than her opponent — who is almost 14 years her junior! As a result, the seven-time Grand Slam champion broke once again to open up a 4-2 lead. Now with most of the momentum on her side, Williams looked to be on her way to holding for a 5-2 lead. However, Muguruza had other ideas. With some of the big hitting that got her the break in the first game of the match, the fifth seed broke back at love in emphatic style. In the following game, the world number eight was up 30-0 and was well on her way to leveling the opening set at four-games-all. But, Williams was not ready to surrender that game just yet. The American’s class began to show again and some loose unforced errors were beginning to fly off of the racquet of Muguruza. As a result, Williams reeled off four points in a row to break for a third time in this final, and would have a chance to serve for the set up 5-3. In the end, she only needed one chance to serve it out, and did so to love. The first set went the way of Venus Williams, by six games to three.

Muguruza Retires Three Games Into the Second Set, Williams Wins Wuhan Title

The second set began just like the end of the first with Williams breaking to march a step closer to her second WTA singles title. At this point in the match, the warning bells were beginning to go off for Muguruza. In the first few games of the match, the fifth seed looked to be moving well, but it was clear that her ankle and other parts of her body were really bothering her, and she looked fatigued. She didn’t run down many balls in the opening game, and her movement was lethargic.

Taking full advantage of her opponent’s misfortunes, Williams continued her surge to another title on the WTA tour in simple straightforward fashion. She consolidated the break to 30, and broke once more to go up a set and 3-0 to the good. That was the last straw for Garbiñe Muguruza, as she decided she just couldn’t continue for the sake of her own health.

Muguruza made the unfortunate decision during the changeover, which secured Williams a comprehensive 6-3, 3-0 win by retirement and her 47th career WTA singles title.

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About the author
Max Gao
Max Gao is a sports writer specializing in tennis and the Toronto Blue Jays, who has also written on the Rogers Cup website as a guest contributor in the past.