BEIJING, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- WTA rising star Garbine Muguruza won her opening match at the China Open on Wednesday to get within one win of the WTA Finals to be held in Singapore.
Taking on Irina Falconi, Muguruza, who enjoyed a first round bye, found herself locked at 2-all after more than half an hour on the court - but the No. 5-seeded Spaniard completely pulled away from there, reeling off eight games in a row to build a 6-2, 4-0 lead, and a few games later she closed the American qualifier out 6-2, 6-1.
"I'm very happy," Muguruza said. "I tried to keep the level I had in Wuhan and also in Tokyo. It was hard, because I didn't play for two days, and here the conditions are not the same, so I'm happy."
She's now through to the third round, where she'll face Croatian veteran Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.
If she reaches the quarterfinals of the Premier Mandatory-level event, she'll qualify for the WTA Finals for the first time, becoming the first Spaniard to do that since Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in 2001.
She was told she was one win away from Singapore in her post-match press conference.
"Is it true?" she said. "I didn't know that. I knew obviously if I did a great tournament here, I would qualify for the WTA Finals. But I didn't know which round it was.
"I think for sure that's a very good motivation now, to finally go there and be one of the top players."