Is Muguruza Muguruined?

This is a story about the dissolving of Garbine Muguruza's year in tennis.

Not so long ago, Muguruza stopped Serena Williams in her tracks. It happened in the French Open final, at a marquee tournament where she had handed Serena her worst loss in a major singles draw—a second-round drubbing, 6-2, 6-2—two years earlier.

Interestingly, all five of their on-court encounters have come at major events (Serena leads 3-2), and on that day in June, Muguruza prevented Serena from tying Steffi Graf's Open-era major singles record. (She would go on equal Graf at Wimbledon.) The count in the 2016 Roland-Garros final was 7-5, 6-4.

"Victories against Serena Williams in Grand Slam finals don't come easily," Tom Perrotta wrote at the time for the Wall Street Journal. None other than Judy Murray reiterated a still-fledgling moniker for the then–22-year-old Spaniard: Muguruthless.

Fast forward to late August. Chris Evert, an 18-time major singles titlist, couldn't summon words about Muguruza's plight at that time. She had labored through an error-strewn 6-3, 6-2 loss to then-No. 124 Jana Cepelova at Wimbledon (whilst defending 2015's finalist points, no less).

Stephen Tignor wrote for *Wimbledon.com* then that "It doesn't take long to figure out whether Garbine Muguruza is going to win or lose a tennis match." Her -ova issues continued in New York. She dropped a second-straight second-rounder to Anastasija Sevastova, then No. 48 in the world after actually retiring three years earlier from the sport. Muguruza racked up errors on this evening—38 in all, each seemingly worse than the last," Ed McGrogan wrote in his match report. That 7-5, 6-4 mess mirrored Muguruza's seemingly eons-old takedown of Serena when it mattered most at the French Open.

A month after Evert's rare, all-but-speechless comment, Muguruza dropped her opener in Wuhan to Jelena Jankovic—herself a water-treading veteran now at No. 56 in the ranks—one year after finishing as finalist there to Venus Williams. It was Muguruza's seventh loss in 15 matches since upending Serena for her historic championship in Paris.

Still, it may be too early to pile on the Mugu-ruin Express. Scottish sportswriter Gavin Nightmair, for one, likes Muguruza's prospects. "Excluding the phenomenal record of Serena Williams, the average Grand Slam champion features in a further three major finals and 2.3 semifinals," he wrote for TennisNow at September's end.

Consider that, upon winning their so-called maiden major singles titles, multi-Slam champs such as Serena (8), Maria Sharapova (9), Petra Kvitova (12), and Kim Clijsters (16) went eight to 16 Grand Slams before even appearing in another major final. (Among active players, only Venus has backed up her first Slam singles crown with a second one in the subsequent major event.)

Short story: Muguruza's misnomer of a Slam slump hardly rivals those of some decorated vets quite yet. It's simply that her two ensuing major appearances have been so lackluster, with decisive losses to lesser players.

Nightmair's informative piece, coupled with Muguruza's penchant for power tennis—a la Monica Seles, does she know any other way?—must lead one to think that the talented Spaniard will feature prominently in a future major final. The sole questions, really, are when and where.

She's too strong and too accurate when she's "on." She's competitive, craves that glory. She's acquainted with it as of June 4. Her headline-chewing pains since Paris obviously had to largely come at smaller events, and those appearances have resulted in desultory losses. But even someone of such iconic stature as Serena knows how hard it can be to get up for those quieter tournaments, and after achieving so much.

Even so, the WTA Finals came and went late last month, and it was plain to see that the tour wanted a winner. Not just the obvious tournament victor, but a winner in Muguruza herself. Problem was, she dropped two round-robin matches to start, though she did briefly harbor a match point against Karolina Pliskova in the midst of losing five straight games and the match.

Muguruza then disposed of an understandably fatigued Svetlana Kuznetsova (3-6, 6-0, 6-1) to end her own season. In that extended affair, her most notable unforced error may have been an inadvertent drop-the-mic moment in her post-match presser:

After unloading on Kuznetsova to claim a measure of pride in Singapore, Muguruza opened up to the media about her season on the whole: "I calmed down and then finally had the results, but then everything changed. All these responsibilities, all these emotions. It was hard for me to deal with this for the next tournaments. But I wouldn't change anything, obviously."

Obviously. And yet. It was strange to see Garbine's year in matches go from Muguruthless to, well, meaningless. From an emphatic major win against the sport's lioness to a round-robin turnaround against a foe who had already qualified for the semifinals.

"I'm really looking forward for the next year, you know, to be better," she told an interviewer after beating Kuznetsova to put a full stop on her season.

Aged 23 since a month ago, Muguruza may have fallen before the fourth round at three of four majors in 2016, but it remains important to note that she won the most important match that she willed herself toward. Come what may, and says here much more is to come, she will always have that unsubtle, hard-won performance to stand on.

That's the story about the dissolving of Garbine Muguruza's year in tennis. She has time.

Follow Jon on Twitter @jonscott9.