Carlota Ciganda was defeated this Wednesday by the Australian Gabriela Ruffels in the first day of the group stage of the T Mobile Match Play, a tournament of the LPGA Tour held at the Shadow Creek course in Las Vegas.
The Navarrese succumbed by a decisive 4 and 3 and has no room for error in the tournament. This Thursday, she faces fellow Australian Hira Naveed and in case of defeat, she would be out of options to advance past the group stage. At the very least, she needs to secure a draw, although if Ruffels beats Lydia Ko in the other group match, half a point against Naveed wouldn’t suffice. As it stands, Carlota must focus on winning to avoid relying on other results to stay alive in the tournament until the last day of the group.
Carlota lost the first hole of the match but held her own until the 9th hole. She won the 7th and they reached that point tied. However, from there, Ruffels dominated. She won the 9th, 11th, 12th, 14th, and 15th and sealed the match. It was a bad stretch for Carlota, where she recorded four bogeys and a double bogey.
Remember that only the champion of each group advances. Ruffels and Naveed have two points after the first round, while Carlota and Ko have zero. That is to say, the Spaniard is playing for everything today against Naveed, who yesterday crushed Lydia Ko by 6 and 4 in one of the big surprises of the day. It wasn’t the only one.
Jin Young Ko, Leona Maguire, Hinako Shibuno, Yuka Saso, and Ruoning Yin also lost in their respective groups, while Nelly Korda, the defending champion, only managed a draw against Brittany Altomare, the same result recorded in the match between Rose Zhang and Nataliya Guseva. Watch out for the Russian, who is gradually positioning herself for the next Solheim Cup. She continues to leave clues. Of the defeats mentioned, the most notable was Maguire’s, a real tough competitor in match play, last year’s finalist, who fell to Brooke Henderson by 6 and 5.
On the other hand, expected victories were achieved by Charley Hull, Jeeno Thitikul, Megan Khang, Celine Boutier, and Minjee Lee.
Today, the second round of the group stage takes place, where it will begin to be decided which players have the best chances of advancing to the match play stage, which will start in the round of 16, and above all, it will be known which golfers are already out of the running to finish as group leaders.
