Garbine Muguruza ends season on high note with win over Kuznetsova

Garbine Muguruza’s up-and-down season has come to its conclusion, and while she didn’t reach the semifinals in Singapore, she ended her campaign on a high note.

After losing her first two round-robin matches to Karolina Pliskova and Agnieszka Radwanska, respectively, the world No. 6 gutted out a 3-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova on Friday in her last WTA Finals match.

Muguruza’s match was meaningless—she was eliminated from the Finals on Wednesday—and she could have folded after dropping the first set. But she did the exact opposite, showing tremendous fight and discipline in taking 12 of 13 games over the final two sets. It was the most quality tennis that we’d seen from Muguruza in a long time.

It was a banner year for the Spaniard, who won her maiden Grand Slam title at Roland Garros. But the 23-year-old had her fair share of troubles. She didn’t get past the third round at any of the other three majors, and lost ­­five opening-round matches (not including the WTA Finals).

The WTA Finals semis are now set. Angelique Kerber will take on Radwanska and Kuznetsova will square off with Dominika Cibulkova.

In addition to Muguruza, Madison Keys, Simona Halep and Pliskova were knocked out in the round-robin stage.