Out of nowhere, Petra Kvitova looks back to her destructive best on the surface that has defined her career.
Poised, positive and serving bombs on the grass courts of Eastbourne, just as she has been all week, Kvitova defeated defending champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 6-2 to claim her first title on the east Sussex coast.
The victory eclipsed the Czech’s previous best performance at Eastbourne, which came 11 years ago when she was beaten in the final by Marion Bartoli before going on to win the first of her two Wimbledon titles. Among active players, only fellow former Wimbledon champions Serena and Venus Williams have more than Kvitova’s five grass-court titles.
On this form, a third victory at the All England Club is by no means unthinkable. It is not often that Ostapenko gets outgunned, but the powerful ninth-seeded Latvian had no answer to a player whose swinging southpaw serve, powerful, flat groundstrokes and first-strike mentality are tailor-made for grass-court tennis.
“I know that Jelena is playing well here on the grass, defending champion, so I was really prepared for the fast, aggressive game she played,” said Kvitova, who went unbroken at Devonshire Park from the quarter-finals onwards.
“I knew I had to put her second serve [back in court], especially, and I was just going for it, trying to play aggressive from the first point, so that she didn’t have time on [the ball]. I think it was working very nicely. I had some points which I think I should have gone for a little bit more, or played it to the other side, but overall I can’t complain.”
It was certainly a closer affair than the scoreline might suggest. Ostapenko battled tigerishly to overcome an erratic start, twice staving off points to avoid falling a double break behind, and after dropping serve again early in the second set she very nearly hit back immediately. Kvitova had to serve her way out of all sorts of trouble but, once she had seen off five break points to consolidate her advantage at 3-1, the momentum shifted decisively in her favour.
“If felt like if, in some moments, I was playing a little bit more consistently, and not missing [so] much, the match could always be much closer or turn the other way,” said Ostapenko, who had particular cause to rue a forehand return she screwed into the alley on her fifth break point of that vital fourth game.
There was still time for a final act of defiance from the 25-year-old, who bounced back from match point down with two consecutive aces and a forehand winner to hold in the penultimate game. From there, though, Kvitova served out confidently to claim her first title since winning on hard courts in Qatar in March of last year.
Kvitova, 32, has not been beyond the fourth round at Wimbledon since 2014, the year of her last title triumph. Seeded 25th, she faces Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in the opening round. Should she make it through to a projected third-round meeting with Paula Badosa, the fourth-ranked Spaniard who was stunned by Britain’s Jodie Burrage in round two of Eastbourne, she would be a notional underdog but an instinctive favourite.
Kvitova finds herself in a fascinating quarter of the draw in SW19, one that includes the returning Serena Williams, last year’s beaten finalist Karolina Pliskova, and former champion Simona Halep. Should she somehow navigate a route to the semi-final, a potential Centre Court showdown with top seed Iga Swiatek would make for fascinating viewing. Kvitova, though, is not getting carried away.
“It’s a different tournament, a different week, and in tennis this is very tricky,” she said. “You just have to forget what was, and focus on what is next.”
In the men’s final, Taylor Fritz defeated Maxime Cressy 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-5) to claim his second Eastbourne title. The Californian, who won the biggest title of his career in Indian Wells earlier this year, did not face a break point throughout.
“There is something about this place,” said Fritz, the 2019 champion, on court afterwards. “It is where I won my first title and when I got here on the first day this week, I felt that I was playing so much better than before. This place has a special spot in my heart.”
At the Bad Homburg Open in Germany, Caroline Garcia of France trailed by a set and a break before fighting back to beat former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-4.
In Mallorca, Stefanos Tsitsipas bounced back from his defeat against Andy Murray in Stuttgart last week to claim the first grass-court title of his career. Tsitsipas, the world No 6, defeated Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-2).