Petra Kvitova, the only other Wimbledon champion in the ladies' draw without the surname Williams took the court yesterday after rain put off her first round match against Sorana Cirstea, which was initially scheduled for Tuesday. In a rematch of their 2010 opening round encounter here at Wimbledon, the Czech did not look troubled by the weather glitch, surrendering just four games to Romanian en route to a straight-set win on Court 18.
Kvitova races to a bagel in the opening set
World number 10 Kvitova was no-nonsense from the time the match commenced, a forehand winner earned her the first point and she soon to hurried to a break of serve. In the following game, she firmly consolidated the break to go up 2-0. The remaining four games of the set were all about Kvitova, breaking Cirstea twice again, on both occasions to love, the latter giving her a chance to serve out the set.
The Czech faced no trouble doing so, serving it out to love to go up a set, the match was just 15 minutes old. Spectacularly, in the concluding two games, Kvitova never dropped a single point, winning eight in a row from 4-0 up.
Kvitova finds decisive break and clings on to it to victory
In the first game of the second set, Cirstea finally broke the duck by winning her first ever game after throwing her first ace of the match. This game was also the first of the match that went to deuce. The Romanian looked to have finally found some rhythm as went on to hold serve in her following service game to go up 2-1. Nevertheless, she was still unable to earn herself a break point as a determined Kvitova followed suit, holding her serve to level the set at 2-2.
Kvitova then struck first in the ensuing game, breaking the Romanian's serve on her first opportunity after forcing a backhand error from her opponent. In the next game, Cirstea finally took Kvitova to deuce on the Czech's serve for the first time in the match but was still denied a break point needed to get back on serve as the Czech took the game to lead 4-2.
From then on, the tide turned heavily in favour of the two-time champion Kvitova. Although the Romanian still managed to hold serve in her final two service games, she was not allowed a single chance to make inroads on the Kvitova service game as the Czech never dropped a single point on serve again, comfortably serving out the match to love for a 6-0, 6-4 triumph, the match was seven minutes shy of hitting the hour mark. Kvitova now leads 5-2 in the head-to-head against Cirstea.
Kvitova's dominance throughout the 53-minute contest is asserted by her numbers. The Czech produced a total of seven aces compared to Cirstea's two. Kvitova's serve was on-song as well, she never faced a single break point throughout the match. Despite producing a lower percentage of first serves than her opponent (66 to 67), she won 25 out of 27 points on her lethal first serve. At the net, the Czech was successful in four of her five net approaches.
Even more commending, Kvitova produced 20 winners compared to just eight unforced errors, 70% of those winners coming in the second set. On the other hand, Cirstea could not manage a positive winner-unforced error differential as she managed just eight winners to 15 unforced errors.
Up next
The 10th-seeded Kvitova, in search of a third Wimbledon title, continues her journey when she plays one of Ekaterina Makarova or Johanna Larsson in round two. The Czech has met both women across the net this year, both clashes coming in March. She beat Larsson en route to the quarterfinals in Indian Wells but was dispatched by Makarova in the third round of Miami.