The 21-year-old, who had not won a match on grass until last year, served consistently and maintained a barrage of powerful, attacking groundstrokes to become only the third left hander to win the women's title after Anne Jones and Martina Navratilova.
Kvitova, appearing in her first grand slam final, dropped her serve in a nervous opening game but stormed back immediately and, having deservedly won the set, continued to go for her shots and reap the dividends.
Sharapova, who won the title as a 17-year-old in 2004, had reached the final without dropping a set but served raggedly and the Russian fifth seed had no answers to the uninhibited approach of her rival, the first Czech to triumph since Jana Novotna in 1998.
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