TENNIS WIMBLEDON 2014 – Looking at Petra Kvitova’s career, there is no question that Wimbledon is her favourite major. It is where she has been most successful. Since 2010, Kvitova (6) has made it to the quarterfinals or better including winning the title in 2011 over Maria Sharapova in straight sets. Cordell Hackshaw
Results, Order of Play, Draws and Interviews from The Championships
After her semifinal match, Petra Kvitova (6) said of Wimbledon, “It’s the best tournament in the world for me definitely. I mean, this is what makes tennis special.” Looking at the Czech’s career, there is no question that Wimbledon is her favourite major. It is where she has been most successful. Since 2010, Kvitova (6) has made it to the quarterfinals or better including winning the title in 2011 over Maria Sharapova in straight sets. Since that major win, Kvitova has somewhat lost her way on tour and has failed to get to another major final. Kvitova herself stated, “I think these three years was really up and down … I knew that a lot of people are expecting from me something more than I did probably.” Now at the 2014 Wimbledon, Kvitova is back to playing like her 2011 and in another Wimbledon final. She took on her compatriot Lucie Safarova (23) and showed yet again that she is the one to beat here at SW19 when she dismissed Safarova in an hour and 20 minutes 7-66 6-1.
Kvitova started the match off in aggressive fashion. She broke Safarova in the opening game and led 2-0. It looked for a moment that this was going to be a routing but Safarova held serve and broke Kvitova to be all even at 2-2. They would remain on serve for the rest of the set as neither player faced another break point. In the breaker, Safarova got up 4-2 but aggressive returning from Kvitova saw her winning 3 straight points for a 5-4 lead. Kvitova was now serving for the set with two serves in hand. However, Safarova was able to get one of Kvitova’s big serves back in play and even it at 5-5. Kvitova hit another big serve and this time, Safarova could not get it in; set point Kvitova 6-5 but again Safarova denied her the chance to take the advantage by winning the next point, 6-6. Kvitova put her head down and took control of the next two points and closed out the breaker 8-6 points. She now had the upper hand with the 1st set in hand.
Kvitova and Safarova are not only friends and compatriots; they are both lefties and have a similar style of play. They both go for big serves and heavy groundstrokes. However, Kvitova was clearly the better player and that was evident in the 2nd set. With the 1st set under her belt, Kvitova was swinging freely on her shots. She was in full stride and Safarova was left only to retreat. She had no answers for Kvitova’s power and weight of shots. Kvitova again jumped ahead to a 2-0 lead as she did in the 1st set but this time, she would maintain it. Safarova would see a break point on Kvitova’s serve in the 5th game but she could not keep the ball in play. Kvitova surged ahead to 4-1. Kvitova broke Safarova again to serve for the match 5-1. She remained aggressive on her service game pulling out an ace to bring up match point. She then unleashed another big serve and snapped the backhand into the open court for the win, 7-66 6-1.
Of the match, Kvitova had this to say, “[W]e know each other well on the court, off the court. Of course, when you are playing lefty on the grass it’s more difficult than normally, I think … I’m just glad that I served well today. I think it was maybe the key of the match then.” It most certainly was the key to the match as Kvitova was having a very good serving day. She made 62% of her 1st serves, winning 70% of those points and 63% on her 2nd serves compared to Safarova who was only able to get 53% in and won 61% of those points with 59% on her 2nd serve. “She was just better there today. We had a really close first set; second set she was just a step better … She’s my friend, so once the match was done I just wished her all the best. I hope she’s going to win it,” Safarova said after the match. However, Safarova took away positives from the match stating, “[I]t was a good run for me … [I]t’s the best result of my career.” Kvitova will face Eugenie Bouchard in the final for a chance at her 2nd major title.
