Petra Kvitova says she has proven that she can still compete with the best players in the world after winning her biggest title since 2018 at the Miami Open.
The 33-year-old Czech defeated Elena Rybakina 7-6(14), 6-2, to win her 30th WTA title and first-ever in Miami. Kvitova’s triumph has brought Rybakina’s career-best 13-match winning streak to an end and has secured her re-entry into the world’s top 10 for the first time since September 2021. She has also joined Serena Williams as the only female players to have won Miami after turning 33.
During her latest match, the two-time Wimbledon champion played what she described as the longest tiebreak of her entire career. During the business end of the first set, Kvitova survived a gut-busting 30-point tiebreaker which saw her fail to convert four set points before prevailing.
“Before our final, I read that Elena didn’t lose a tie-break yet this season,” Kvitova said. “So, you know, I had a break up—I was like, ‘Okay, good, I’m going to serve it out.’ And boom, it was a tie-break. I was like, ‘Oh, very nice. What are you going to do now?’
“But I was telling myself that she has to lose at some point one tie-break this season. So I was going to try.”
“It was like one mini-break and then other one and we just kept going on the serves—I mean, I totally lost the control of who is serving, who is not, when we are changing the sides and so on.’
“I was a little bit passive in the tie-break in the end, I think, and that’s why I had to tell myself to go a little bit forward for it to take it—as me, as Petra—playing aggresive to take it and not to wait for the missing, which she didn’t miss.
“It was really the hardest tie-break I’ve played, probably.”
Before Miami, Kvitova’s 2023 season was yet to take off. In her first five tournaments played this year, she won nine out of 14 matches played with her best performance being a run to the quarter-finals in Indian Wells last month. She also reached the quarter-finals of the Adelaide International.
As to the impact of what her latest triumph could have on her season, the former world No.2 has played down its significance heading into the clay swing of the Tour. Kvitova has a golden opportunity of claiming plenty of points over the coming weeks after winning just one Tour match on the clay last year between April and May.
“I have no idea what this (win) will do on my the season. I’m just happy that I won it from nothing,” she said. “I think I’m playing pretty good tennis starting the year but I didn’t go really deep in a tournament. Finally, I have.’
“I think I just take it very positive that I can still compete with the best. The clay is waiting and then it’s grass. The tennis world is very fast and I can’t really stand there and be watching this trophy all the time. I have to move forward, of course, as everybody would. It means a lot to me that even at my age I can still win a big tournament. That’s the biggest thing.”
Kvitova has now contested at least one WTA final every year since 2011. Out of active players on the WTA Tour, only Venus Williams has won more singles trophies than her.
