Petra Kvitova has plenty of experience on the grass courts of Wimbledon. After all, she’s a two-time champion at the All England Club.
But that doesn’t mean everything is easy
for her once she steps onto the green courts in southwest London.
She has spoken about being nervous when she
comes to Wimbledon, and she showed some of those nerves on Thursday when she
beat Ana Bogdan 6-1, 7-6 (5).
It was a straight-set victory, but the
second set wasn’t straightforward.
Kvitova was leading 5-1 when Bogdan started
to reel off game after game. Then Kvitova had a match point while serving at
5-4, but failed to convert that chance and then the game itself, eventually
leading to the tiebreaker.
“Especially a few games on my serve, it was
really long games, and mentally very tough,” the 25th-seeded Kvitova said. “I
think maybe even this took some energy from my serve and I just couldn’t make
it.”
She still pulled it out in the end, like
she has done so many times in the past at Wimbledon. She won her first title in
2011, and added the second in 2014. But she was attacked in her home in 2016
and suffered knife injuries to her playing left hand. She later had surgery and
needed more than five months to recover.
Last week, she won the fifth grass-court
title of her career at a tournament in Eastbourne, England.
That should have given her plenty of
confidence heading into this tournament, and this match.
“Somehow I made it,” Kvitova said on court.
“I don’t know how, but I did it.”
Kvitova will next face Paula Badosa. The
fourth-seeded Spaniard defeated Irina Bara 6-3, 6-2.
Sixth-seeded Karolina Pliskova, who reached
the Wimbledon final last year, was eliminated on Centre Court. The Czech player
lost to British wild-card entry Katie Boulter 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-4.
The 25-year-old Boulter also beat Pliskova
last week at a warmup tournament in Eastbourne for her first win against a
top-10 player. She broke for a 5-4 lead in the final set and converted her
first match point with a volley winner.
Boulter will face Harmony Tan in the next
round. Tan eliminated seven-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams in the
first round and then beat 32nd-seeded Sara Sorribes Tormo 6-3, 6-4 on Thursday.
Top-ranked Iga Swiatek also advanced — and
won her 37th straight match.
Swiatek defeated Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove
6-4, 4-6, 6-3 on No. 1 Court to improve her winning streak, the longest since
Martina Hingis also won 37 matches in a row in 1997.
She will next face Alizé Cornet, who
defeated American player Claire Liu 6-3, 6-3.
In the men’s draw, Nick Kyrgios advanced to
the third round for the sixth time in eight Wimbledon appearances. The unseeded
Australian, who reached the quarterfinals at the All England Club in his debut
in 2014, beat 26th-seeded Filip Krajinovic 6-2, 6-3, 6-1.
It was a much easier match than the first
round, when Kyrgios was taken to five sets by British wild-card entry Paul
Jubb.
“Getting over the line in that first round
was massive,” Kyrgios said. “Today I was kind of in my zone. I just wanted to
remind everyone that I’m pretty good.”
Kyrgios will next face Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The fourth-seeded Greek beat Jordan Thompson 6-2, 6-3, 7-5 on No. 1 Court.
Tsitsipas will be playing in the third
round at the All England Club for the first time since 2018. He lost in the
first round last year and 2019. His best Wimbledon result was reaching the
fourth round in 2018.
No. 11 Taylor Fitz of the United States also
advanced, along with No. 21 Botic van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands and
Richard Gasquet of France.
No. 17 Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain
withdrew from the tournament after testing positive for COVID-19. He had been
scheduled to play Daniel Elahi Galan of Colombia.
No. 12 Diego Schwartzman and No. 13 Denis
Shapovalov both lost. Brandon Nakashima, an American who beat Shapovalov 6-2,
4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (6), will next face Galan.