After successfully defending her title in Birmingham, Petra Kvitova will go to the tournament in Wimbledon starting Monday as one of the big favourites.
Petra Kvitova has won 25 titles in her illustrious career to date – a fifth of them this year: St. Petersburg, Doha, Prague, Madrid and most recently her recent success in Birmingham took her to second place in the Porsche Race to Singapore, ahead of Australian Open Champion Caroline Wozniacki and behind Simona Halep, who won her first Grand Slam title at the French Open.
At the first two major events of the year, however, Kvitova did not go well: In Melbourne she lost to Andrea Petkovic after a marathon match right at the start, in Paris the 28-year-old went out after two lost tiebreaks against Anett Kontaveit in round three. She would put too much pressure on herself at major events, Kvitova explained in the wake of the title defence in Birmingham.
Nevertheless, the big coup has already worked twice, 2011 and 2014 in Wimbledon. And both times Kvitova’s final opponents, Maria Sharapova and Eugenie Bouchard, had no chance. Kvitova is comfortable on grass, so she won’t take a break this week, like many other top ladies in Eastbourne.
The omens for the triple on Church Road are not bad: the true condition of Serena Williams is a general guesswork, last year’s winner Garbine Muguruza is not playing constantly enough. No wonder Kvitova is counting on himself: “Can I win in Wimbledon,” asked the left-handers themselves. “Well, why not?” Anything can happen, an unexpected injury can occur, but basically Petra Kvitova should be at the top of the list of favourites.
If she doesn’t put too much pressure on herself.