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How Sofia Kenin started to play tennis according to her father Alex. VIDEO

MELBOURNE ORDER OF PLAY. Sofia Kenin, Garbine Muguruza, and will play on Saturday

1 February 2020

Sofia Kenin is about to play her first slam final at the Australian Open where she will face Garbine Muguruza. The American had a lot of success that has its roots also from the huge struggle that her parents had to face when they move from the Soviet Union in the 80s. It was her father Alex in Melbourne to reveal the beginning of their experience in the US and how everything started.

Talking to the journalists, Alex said that Sofia was extremely interested in playing tennis since she was very young. She started to do her first swings at 3 and their driveway was the obvious place to play.

Alex revealed “We had a very big driveway, so it was logical – ‘alright, what shall we do after work?’ So I gave her two racquets, and we played in the driveway. All of a sudden, I noticed that she started hitting the ball. At that point, you can hardly call it hitting the ball, but at least she had great hand-eye coordination.”

Understanding her great talent, Alex started to convince the coaches to make her play with bigger guys and once again, he was driving all over the places chasing tournaments. The rest is history… history in the making.

.@SofiaKenin got a taste of professional tennis when she was young thanks to our 2011 champion @Clijsterskim.

Will you tune in to see the 🇺🇸 compete for her first Grand Slam title later today?

🎥: @wta | #AO2020 | #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/05f7Z9kVAz

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) February 1, 2020

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Sofia Kenin vs. Garbine Muguruza

Head to head 1-0 for Kenin

Sofia Kenin will take on Garbine Muguruza in the final for the 2^nd time of their career. They are scheduled to compete on Saturday at 7.30 pm (NB) on the Rod Laver Arena.

Sofia Kenin: ranking and results

Ranked no. 15, the American reached the final after defeating Martina Trevisan 6-2 6-4, Ann Li 6-1 6-3, Shuai Zhang 7-5 7-6⁷, Cori Gauff 6-7⁵ 6-3 6-0, Ons Jabeur 6-4 6-4 and Ashleigh Barty 7-6⁶ 7-5. Sofia has a 8-2 win-loss record in 2020, 8-2 on hard (See FULL STATS).

Last year at the Australian Open Kenin lost in the 2^nd round 6-3 6-7⁵ 6-4 to Simona Halep.

Garbine Muguruza: ranking and results

Ranked no. 32, Garbine got to the final after defeating Shelby Rogers 0-6 6-1 6-0, Ajla Tomljanovic 6-3 3-6 6-3, Elina Svitolina 6-1 6-2, Kiki Bertens 6-3 6-3, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5 6-3 and Simona Halep 7-6⁸ 7-5.

Muguruza has an 11-1 win-loss record in 2020, 11-1 on hard (See FULL STATS). Garbine’s best result of the current season was getting to the semi-finals in Shenzhen before reaching the final at the Australian Open .

Last year at the Australian Open Garbine lost in the 4^th round 6-3 6-1 to Karolina Pliskova.

Head to head analysis

This will be the 2^nd time that Sofia Kenin and Garbine Muguruza clash against each other. The head to head is 1-0 for Kenin (see full H2H stats), 1-0 on hard. The only time that they fought against each other, Kenin won 6-0 2-6 6-2 in the 1^st round in Beijing back in 2019.