Garbiñe Muguruza was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 8 October 1993 and represented Spain. She played a powerful, aggressive game from the baseline.
She first made headlines at the 2014 French Open, where she beat Serena Williams in the second round on the way to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal; earlier that year she had won her first WTA title in Hobart. In 2015 she reached the Wimbledon final, losing to Serena Williams, won her first WTA 1000 title in Beijing, qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time and finished the year at No. 3.
Her first major came at Roland Garros in 2016, where she beat Serena Williams in the final. The second followed at Wimbledon in 2017, when she beat Venus Williams in the final with Conchita Martínez in her coaching team. On 11 September 2017 she became world No. 1 and held the ranking for four weeks.
She reached a third major final at the 2020 Australian Open, losing to Sofia Kenin, and in 2021, again working with Martínez, she won three titles, among them the WTA Finals in Guadalajara, where she beat Anett Kontaveit to become the first Spanish winner of the event. It was the 10th and last title of her career. Martínez was named WTA Coach of the Year for that season.
In 2023 she announced an extended break, and on 20 April 2024, at a news conference in Madrid, she made it permanent, saying, "I didn't miss the discipline and the difficulty of the life I had before." She finished with 10 singles titles, a 449–238 record and nearly 25 million US dollars in prize money. Since retiring she has joined the Laureus World Sports Academy, served as tournament director of the WTA Finals in Riyadh from 2024 to 2026, and in 2026 became co-tournament director of the Mutua Madrid Open alongside Feliciano López.