(Tennis news)  Garbine Muguruza  had lost her first match of the week to former world number 1 Karolina Pliskova and dropped a set behind rival Barbora Krejcikova, but now Muguruza has come back to life to fly through the last eight sets of the tournament, breaking Kontaveit’s 12 match winning streak as it pushed her to second place in the round robin and repeated the feat in the final.

Muguruza first played in the event in 2015 and went on to reach the semifinals where she lost to Agnieszka Radwańska. Since then she has qualified in 2016, 2017 and after a 3 year gap came back to win the title. She is currently ranked three and could not have finished the season any better. Anett Kontaveit will be disappointed as she had a stellar winning streak cooking up right before the event. She was one of the favourites to win the event, both the times she lost in straight sets to Muguruza.

Muguruza finished the year with 38 victories in 54 matches and two title wins. It was the perfect stage to defeat Kontaveit as she had beaten Muguruza in the previous event they entered. In the Kremlin Cup they played in the quarterfinals as Kontaveit dropped only two games enroute to a title win. Kontaveit ended the season with 45 victories in 60 matches and had won four titles all of which came under 4 weeks. Kontaveit reached her third consecutive WTA final and has won the first two while losing this one.

"The last couple of years, I didn't play the same way I played before," Muguruza said. "But I didn't play bad tennis, either. I was just here, there, not going into the deep rounds at Grand Slams that made the difference. I always felt I had tennis. I was just not putting the battle together.

"I don't even know when the tournaments in Australia are starting yet," Kontaveit said with a laugh. "I really have to first look into that, then start taking it back week by week and just plan the pre-season.

In doubles, Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova won their first year end title as they beat Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens. Barbora and Katerina had reached the finals in their debut in 2018, this time they made sure to return with a trophy in hand. They were undefeated throughout the event and dropped only four games when they faced Mertens and Hsieh in the round robin stage.

Also read: Garbine Muguruza sets up final against Anett Kontaveit at Akron WTA Finals Guadalajara