Spain’s Garbine Muguruza looks dejected during her second round match against the Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova at the Birmingham Classic on June 21, 2018.ED SYKES/Reuters
Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza tried to look on the bright side of her second-round 6-2, 6-4 defeat to unseeded Barbora Strycova in the Birmingham Classic on Thursday.
“We have a lot of time now to prepare (for Wimbledon). In a way it’s good,” Muguruza said. “I wish I could play more matches, but nothing really worries me.”
The top-seeded Spaniard struggled in windy conditions against the tenacious Czech, who has won their last three encounters on grass.
Muguruza sometimes looked languid in responding to the challenge of a hard-working opponent, and occasionally became irritated by the strong winds.
She also let slip a 4-2 second set lead, and was several times passed when she increased her ratio of net attacks.
“I’m going to practice more to get ready for Wimbledon. I’m not going to do anything very different,” Muguruza said. “I’m staying in the same place and things like that, but I’m not superstitious. I don’t have to do anything special. That’s silly.
“Obviously my level wasn’t at its best. But credit to her. I think she played well.”
Although Muguruza lost in Birmingham last year too, she played four useful warm-up matches against two this time. But she also lost to Strycova at Eastbourne a week later last year before going on to win Wimbledon.
Strycova reached the quarter-finals here for a third time and now plays Lesia Tsurenko, the unseeded Ukrainian who overcame sixth-seeded Daria Kasatkina 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.
“I like to fight, on and off the court,” Strycova said. “Sometimes you fight and get a reward.
“You have to play tricky in these conditions, and I did that, although I admit in that last game I was very nervous.”
Earlier, defending champion Petra Kvitova beat Daria Gavrilova, a troublesome opponent in the past, 6-2, 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals.
Gavrilova won their last two matchups being persistent and mobile enough to contain Kvitova’s uncompromising hitting. But the wind pushed and pulled the Australian into errors at important moments.
During Gavrilova’s first two service games, she committed four double faults and lost both service games, helping Kvitova to a rampant start.
“The conditions were tough in that wind,” acknowledged Kvitova, who delivered five double faults herself. “But that’s fine. The grass helped me for sure. We hadn’t played each other on this surface before.”
Fourth-seeded Kvitova next plays Julia Goerges, the world No. 13 from Germany, who beat last year’s runner-up, Ashleigh Barty, 7-6 (6), 6-3.