Tennis: Kvitova through to third round

Wimbledon queen on course for clash with Sharapova at Pan Pacific Open.

TOKYO: Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova beat Mandy Minella of Luxembourg at the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament to stay on course for a potential quarter-final match against Maria Sharapova.

The 21-year-old Czech fifth seed, who defeated Sharapova in the final at Wimbledon to win her first Grand Slam title in July, coasted to a 6-2, 6-3 victory to reach the third round.

Although Kvitova was on court for 65 minutes, she said she was still some way off her best form.

“My left-handed serve, it’s great. They [my opponents] have a problem sometimes,” said Kvitova. “But I must improve my serve, because sometimes I have many double faults and not many percentage of first serves. I have more to improve,” she added.

Before a possible match-up with Sharapova, Kvitova must beat American Vania King, who defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 7-6 (8/6).

Two-time champion Sharapova, who beat Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand 6-2, 7-5, will play Julia Goerges after the German outclassed Greta Arn of Hungary 6-2, 6-1.

Earlier in the day, third-seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus eased aside Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 6-1, 6-3 on the centre court to reach the third round.

“I always get a little bit nervous before the first match since the US Open,” said the 22-year-old Azarenka.

“I didn’t play my best tennis, but did pretty good. I think I moved very well, so it was enough. But I definitely need to step up,” she added.

In other second-round action, fourth-seed Vera Zvonareva of Russia outplayed Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria 7-5, 6-0, while ninth-seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland defeated Angelique Kerber of Germany 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Sixteenth-seed Shahar Peer of Israel went down to Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-1.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28^th,  2011.