MELBOURNE: Two-time Grand Slam champion Garbine Muguruza climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to help clear her mind of tennis and the unusual off-season preparation is paying off after she reached round three at the Australian Open on Thursday. 1 defeated home hope Ajla Tomljanovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 and faces Ukraine’s fifth seed Elina Svitolina or American Lauren Davis next. The 26-year-old Muguruza won the French Open in 2016 and Wimbledon the next year, but her career has stalled and she now finds herself ranked 32. You don’t get any award, any prize, any photo, nothing up there,” Muguruza said of the few days in November scaling Africa’s highest mountain. At her season-opening tournament in Shenzhen, China she won back-to-back matches for the first time since the French Open in May-June, before losing in the semi-finals.

Source: Manila Times January 23, 2020 16:18 UTC