Garbine Muguruza wins 2021 Dubai Tennis Championship

Garbine Muguruza (Tatiana Kulita, Wikimedia Commons)

Garbine Muguruza of Barcelona, Spain won the 2021 Dubai Tennis Championship on Saturday. In the first WTA 1000 event of the year, Muguruza defeated Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic in the final, 7-6, 6-3.

This was the second straight WTA Final for Muguruza, the 13th-ranked player in the world. Earlier this month she lost to Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, 6-2, 6-1 in the Qatar Open, also in the Middle East. The strong stretch of play for Muguruza has come even though her coach, Conchita Martinez, recently tested positive for coronavirus. 

The Dubai Tennis Championship was the first women’s tennis event recognized as a WTA 1000 event. It was previously known as a WTA Premier event, however, in 2021 the WTA aligned themselves with the ATP Tour when it came to categorizing their tournaments. The WTA 1000 events are in the second-tier, only behind the four majors.

The prestigious tournament in Indian Wells, California normally takes place around this time, but was postponed this year because of coronavirus. Organizers are hoping to negotiate with the ATP and WTA for a date later in 2021, probably for the fall.

The state of California has been the American state hit hardest by coronavirus. There are currently 1,665,261 cases of coronavirus in California alone, with 55,813 deaths. There have also been 3,623,603 cases overall. There have now been more coronavirus cases in California than Italy. Besides the United States, the only nations with more coronavirus cases than the state of California, are Brazil, Russia, Great Britain, India, and France.

Despite the postponement of Indian Wells, the Miami Open will take place later this month in Florida. That will be after a WTA 500 event in Russia and a WTA 250 event in Mexico this week.

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