Garbiñe Muguruza’s Unexpected Grand Slam Love Story

In August 2021, Garbiñe Muguruza, the former World No. 1 tennis player, embarked on a stroll through Central Park during her stay in New York City. Little did she know that this ordinary walk would lead to a life-changing encounter with a stranger, Arthur Borges, who is now her fiancé and a two-time Grand Slam champion.

“My hotel was close to Central Park, and I was bored, so I thought I should go for a walk,” Muguruza shared with Hola! Spain in May 2023. As fate would have it, she crossed paths with Borges on the streets. His simple wish of “Good luck at the US Open” left her captivated by his handsomeness.

Borges, the director of Made-To-Measure in North America for designer Tom Ford, hails from Spain and divides his time between Switzerland and New York. Despite being from different worlds – he immersed in the realm of fashion and luxury, and she a tennis icon – the attraction was undeniable.

During their first encounter, Borges, a stranger at the time, asked Muguruza for a selfie. “I didn’t know anything about him, and I really liked that he was from another world. He belongs to the world of fashion and luxury. He is not part of tennis, and for me, it was something important, that not everything is tennis in my life,” she expressed.

The moment of their meeting, captured in a framed photo, left a lasting impression on the tennis star. Intrigued, Muguruza agreed to meet Borges again, leading to regular meet-ups during her downtime at the US Open.

“He’s a mix, like me. I’m half-Venezuelan and half-Spanish, so we understand each other,” Muguruza shared. “We share that feeling of being citizens of the world.”

Around three months after their initial meeting, the couple made their relationship public, with Borges joining Muguruza for photos following her victory at the WTA Finals in Mexico. Subsequently, holiday snaps in the Caribbean and revisiting “special moment” sites in Central Park marked their journey.

Celebrating their one-year anniversary, the couple returned to New York, sharing moments from their visit on Instagram. In May of the same year, Muguruza and Borges announced their engagement with a heartfelt photo, showcasing an engagement ring and an embrace. The joint caption, “‘You had me at ‘Hello'”, encapsulated the romance.

Borges surprised Muguruza with a proposal that brought her to tears. “When he proposed to me, I started crying. I didn’t know how to react. I said yes through tears of emotion, and everything was very romantic,” Muguruza recalled.

While this will be the first marriage for the tennis star, Borges had previously been married to Kiira Korpi, a champion Finnish figure skater. Their 11-year relationship ended in June 2021.

Planning to tie the knot in 2024, potentially in Spain with a beach setting, Muguruza and Borges haven’t set a specific date. “We both fit well and got along well from the first moment. It’s as if we knew each other before,” Muguruza expressed, highlighting the serendipitous nature of their love story.