Agnieszka Radwanska’s hopes of matching her achievement of 2012 by reaching the Ladies’ Singles final were dashed when, against expectations and odds, she was out-powered and eventually overcome 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 by the Spanish 21-year-old Garbine Muguruza in one hour 56 minutes.

In a gruelling opening set, in which Radwanska claimed she was “too defensive”, she must have felt as if she was involved in a re-run of that 2012 final against Serena Williams as Muguruza broke her twice with some breathtaking hitting.

The two women had already met four times, with the Spaniard winning the most recent two, so it was not as if Radwanska did not know what to expect. What must have come as a surprise was how well Muguruza executed her game plan.

The afternoon looked like proving a bleak one as she then went 2-0 down in the second set but from a deficit of 1-3 her excellent retrieving and tactic of getting back the extra ball to invite errors from the other side of the net began to pay spectacular results as she swept the next five games to level the match and broke serve at the start of the final set.

But she was powerless in the face of her opponent’s rediscovery of that opening set domination. In what turned out to be the final game, Radwanska had two break points which would have given her a fighting chance. But the Spaniard saved both and Radwanska then fell match point down when she called mid-point for a referral of a Muguruza shot which landed near the baseline. The ball was deemed “in” and one point later the match was over.