Garbine Muguruza, a former Wimbledon winner, has said she is quitting tennis.
The 30-year-old Spanish player won the French Open in 2016 and then the Venus Rosewater Dish on Centre Court the next summer. However, she hadn’t played a match in a tournament since January 2023.
She said at a press conference where she was named a Laureus Ambassador, “If someone had told me 25 years ago, when I started hitting my first tennis balls, that I would become a professional tennis player, that I would win Roland Garros and Wimbledon, that I would become number one in the world, and that I would win the WTA Finals, I would have thought that person was crazy.”
Tennis has helped me a lot in this first part of my life. This trip has been amazing, and I’ve been through some very special things. I’ve been to many places around the world and learned about many countries.
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Thank you so much to everyone who has helped and been with me through this phase. Without them, I would not have been able to get here.
I’ve grown up and become an adult in a way that isn’t typical. Now I’m ready to start a new part of my life that will definitely have something to do with tennis and sports.
The work I’ve done with Laureus Sport for Good makes me hope that there will be many more opportunities to help young people through sports.
Muguruza became a professional tennis player in 2012. Three years later, at Wimbledon, she lost her first grand slam final to Serena Williams.
But the big-hitting Spanish player got back at Williams in 2016 by shocking her in the final of Roland Garros. The next year, she beat Venus Williams to win Wimbledon.
In September 2017, she got to the top of the rankings and stayed there for four weeks. But Muguruza wasn’t very good at staying on top, so she fell in the rankings before making a comeback in 2020.
At the Australian Open, Muguruza lost to American Sofia Kenin in the final of her fourth grand slam. At the end of 2021, she won the WTA Finals for the first time and went back to the top three in the world rankings.
But the next season, she fell back down the ranks. It’s not a surprise that she quit the sport after such a long break.
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