In what was anticipated to be a close match, turned out to be a very straightforward afternoon for Angelique Kerber as she posted a 6-2 6-1 victory over Garbine Muguruza in the first of the quarter-finals in Stanford.  When you see a scoreline like this one, it can often be difficult to determine whether it was A) the winner playing great, B) the opponent having a bad day or C) a bit of both.  Muguruza played a poor match, but that was largely down to how well Kerber was playing, which forced Garbine into losing her patience and making too many unforced errors.

Kerber went about this match in a really positive manner.  After four successive breaks, she won ten of the final eleven games.  In fact, Muguruza did not hold serve ONCE and won just nine points on serve throughout the whole contest.  Kerber was reasonably aggressive and successfully got Muguruza on the run in longer rallies.  Garbine’s deep strokes, often right down the centre, have troubled many of the top players this year; However, Kerber’s ability to get down low, absorb the pace and dish it straight back was pretty clinical in this match.  I think this is a good match-up for the German player.  I really feel there has been a concerted effort from Kerber in the last couple of months to be more aggressive and take more risks in matches.  She’s remained solid over the past year, without moving up the rankings and showing any kind of positive progression.  After a really promising grass court season, which included the win of her career against Maria Sharapova in the fourth round, Kerber seems to be in a good place right now with her game.

This was an off-day for Muguruza, but still she continues to impress and a quarter-final showing in Stanford with wins over Dominika Cibulkova and Daniela Hantuchova was extremely respectable.  I was really surprised how one-sided this quarter-final was after Kerber’s rusty and ragged performance against Coco Vandeweghe in the second round.  That match was truly terrible and the difference in Kerber’s level was pretty staggering.  She will be the heavy favourite to make the final with Sachia Vickery or Varvara Lepchenko awaiting in the semi-finals.

Poll Results: 48% correctly predicted that Kerber would beat Muguruza