"I took energy from the crowd" - Muguruza shines in first match back in Madrid

Saturday, 30 April 2022 at 12:30

World No.9 Garbiñe Muguruza kicked off her Mutua Madrid Open campaign with a strong 7-5, 6-2 win over Ajla Tomljanovic in the first round.

Madrid is Muguruza's first tournament since her opening-round loss to Alison Riske at Indian Wells in early March. The former No.1 opted to skip Miami to take time to allow her body to rest and begin the clay season anew. She said:

"I went out without a lot of expectation, not knowing with lack of matches how it was gonna feel out there, but that's it. I took the energy from the crowd more this time than other years. In other years I can't get over sometimes the nerves. But this year I was, like, 'You know what? I'm gonna use the crowd.' If they cheer up for me, if I put the ball in the locker room, then who cares, right? So yeah, happy with that."

Muguruza is taking a different approach this year to Madrid compared to previous years, explaining:

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"I think that I all the time thought that being the only tournament in Spain, it's a lot of pressure because you only have one opportunity to really shine. This year I said, you know what, the opposite. I'm here, it's a great tournament. Just go out there, play your best tennis and whatever happens happens instead of just putting that baggage on my back all the time."

She also said the break was very much needed:

"I felt like I needed it because I was training a lot, and my body was not really taking on the training. It was one pain here, one pain there. It was an accumulation of pain. I told my team, I think we should take 10 days at least off so I get to recover naturally my body. As soon as I stopped playing, my shoulder started healing, my leg, my back, everything started to be where it should. I said, 'I think we should focus more this year on clay court.' It was a natural feeling. The schedule, it's pretty intense. So I felt nothing's going to happen if I skip one or two tournaments if after I'm gonna come back and feel better."