Wimbledon 2015: Garbine Muguruza through to first Grand Slam semi-final with victory over Timea Bacsinszky
The relative unknowns has already both gone further at Wimbledon than ever before
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It is hardly unknown for seeds to be scattered to the Wimbledon wind, and even with an extra week's practice on grass this year, the bottom half of the women's draw soon had an odd look about it. Caroline Wozniacki's unexpected defeat by Spain's Garbine Muguruza meant that none of the quarter-finalists in that half were even ranked in the world's top 12. None has ever won a major either but now Muguruza has that possiblity.
She defeated 15th seed Timea Bacsinszky 7-5 6-3 in a match that took never really grabbed a No 1 Court crowd. With neither of them ever having gone beyond even the second round here before, spectators were probably unfamiliar with them and did not appear to favour either player. They were so quiet that Maria Sharapova's shrieks could be heard emanating from Centre Court.
Bacsinszky's is the more interesting back-story, a tale of a youngster who was pushed too hard by a father living his own dream rather than hers, causing her to fall out of love with the sport two years ago. She worked as bartender, waitress and kitchen hand before deciding tennis was not so bad after all.
Sadly, she has cut all ties with her Hungarian father, but the three-month break did wonders for her career and from dropping out of the top 250 at the time she is now No 15.
The Spaniard, 21 years old and seeded 20th here, beat her in three sets at the Australian Open, the third of them a bagel. There was never any danger of that in an even contest that had barely a break point before Muguruza took advantage of Bacsinszky's erratic forehand to take the first set after 50 minutes.
An unexpected exchange of breaks followed right at the start of the second set, Bacsinszky finding that her previously well executed drop-shot failed her for the first time. From there Muguruza, serving first, kept the pressure on and went 5-3 ahead with a crushing backhand winner.
She served out comfortably to earn a place in her first grand slam semi-final.
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