Barely a year earlier, Kvitova was ranked outside the Top 50, hadn't advanced to a slam QF and had never even won a match on grass. Flashforward to 2011 and she was crowned Wimbledon champion, knocking on the door of the Top 5, and armed with a game that seemed built for multiple SW19 crowns.
Over the course of the previous year, Kvitova's potential had often been stunningly apparent, but exactly WHEN she'd put it altogether and put on a serious slam run was the question. Just weeks earlier, Kvitova had squandered a 3-0 lead in the 3rd set of her Round of 16 match in Paris against eventual Roland Garros champ Li Na, and had then lost in the Eastbourne final to Marion Bartoli. But once play began at the All-England Club, all doubts were squashed. After advancing to the QF without dropping a set (and dropping serve just once), the Czech closed out three-setters vs. Tsvetana Pironkova (leading 54-10 in winners) and Victoria Azarenka with 6-2 final sets, then dominated Maria Sharapova in a 6-3/6-4 final to become the first maiden slam champ at Wimbledon since 2004, the first Czech winner since Jana Novotna in 1998, the first lefty Wimbledon finalist since 1994 (Martina Navratilova) and Ladies champ since 1990 (Navratilova), as well as the first player born in the 1990s -- male or female -- to win a major crown.
Hers was the most buzz worthy title run of the 2010's at Wimbledon, and quite possibly at *any* of the slams during the decade. At the time, it was if the masses had witnessed the birth of the next *great* Wimbledon champ.
As the decade nears its end, Kvitova (w/ her '14 win) *has* been the only non-Serena to win multiple titles since 2010, and the only non-Williams to do so since Steffi Graf in the mid-1990's. But things haven't worked out *exactly* as many expected, nor hoped, back in 2011. Kvitova has become one of most beloved champions in the game, and still often flashes the dominant form we saw nearly a decade ago. But the internal Good Petra/Bad Petra combat remains, even when she ultimately wins matches after having been needlessly forced to three sets (earning her the "P3tra" moniker).
But along with the inconsistency, illness (her asthma has always been an issue, especially in hot and humid slam conditions) and a December '17 home invasion attack -- which avoided becoming a tragedy but nearly ended her career (emergency surgery on her racket hand allowed her to continue playing tennis, even while leaving the tips of several fingers without feeling more than two years later) -- for a time made her slam appearances more about just being able to *be* there than actually winning. That she has still yet to reach #1, after climbing as high as #2 on four different occasions (2011, '15 and twice in '19), is emblematic of the so-close-and-yet-so-far nature of a career that has been very good, but remains just this side of "great." While the first half of the 2010's made it easy to think the back half might be dominated by the Czech, Kvitova hasn't played into the second week of the fortnight since winning the title five years ago (going 4-4 heading into '19).
But Kvitova reached her first post-attack slam final at the 2019 Australian Open, and still won't turn 30 until 2020. There could still be *much* of The Petra Story left to be told, at both Wimbledon and elsewhere.
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Sharapova's appearance in the final was her first at Wimbledon since her 2004 title run, as well as her first at *any* slam in three and a half years, since her career-threatening shoulder surgery after the 2008 season. She hadn't lost a set en route to the final before falling to Kvitova in straights.
Sharapova reached five additional slam finals before her suspension in 2016, but none came at Wimbledon. Two were at the Australian Open, and three at Roland Garros. Since her 2017, return, the Russian has (so far) reached just one slam QF.
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In all, three "NextGen" players reached the Wimbledon final four in 2011: champion Kvitova, who been there the previous year, as well as 21-year old maiden slam semifinalists Victoria Azarenka (a future #1 and multi-slam winner) and later SW19 finalist Sabine Lisicki.
In a season in which Azarenka had never played better, she'd still had a hard time staying on the court due to injuries (she'd had four in-match retirements in '11). Then, in the slam in which she finally held herself together well enough to reach her first career major semifinal, she ran head-first into another young player with more game, more calm and even more potential on the grass courts -- Kvitova. The Czech defeated the Belarusian, who didn't have to wait long for her big moment. She won back-to-back majors in Melbourne in 2012-13.
Meanwhile, if not for that of Kvitova, Lisicki's would have been the story of the tournament.
A quarterfinalist in 2009, the German had missed the event in 2010 due to injury (a career-long trend) after a severe ankle injury that forced her to learn to walk again. Heading into the '11 tournament, she'd written a personal letter to the AELTC requesting a wild card and (apparently, as the letter has never been made public) talking of her love of the tournament and desire to be able to play at the All-England Club again. She was rewarded with a spot in the MD, and took advantage it by becoming the second WC (Zheng Jie '08) to reach the Wimbledon semis, and the first German woman to advance as far at SW19 since 1999, doing so while simultaneously flashing a winning smile, refreshing personality and (most importantly) a huge serve deep into the second week.
Lisicki had proven herself in the time leading up to the fortnight, sweeping through Birmingham without dropping a set after receiving her Wimbledon WC berth. But what came next was on another level. In the 2nd Round, she outlasted reigning RG champ Li Na, rising to the occasion of her back being against the wall by producing maybe the best moment of the tournament -- her game-winning back-to-back-to-back-to-back 120 mph+ serves, two for aces -- after finding herself down double MP late in the 3rd set. Possibly mentally shaken by such a display, #3-seeded Li lost five of the final six games of the 3-6/6-4/8-6 match.
A win over '10 Ladies finalist Vera Zvonareva followed, then in th QF Lisicki defeated Marion Bartoli (who'd upset defending champ Serena Williams a round earlier) under the Centre Court roof as thunder and lightning appropriately filled the air around the grounds outside. After a long week of (as always) emotional victories, Bartoli "hit the wall" in the 3rd set, double-faulting, huffing-and-puffing, shaking out her leg and taking a moment to get some additional rest by sitting on a linesperson's chair. The German's run was ended by Sharapova in the semis.
Lisicki's excitement at the '11 event didn't only come in singles, as she also teamed with Sam Stosur in doubles to defeat defending champs Vania King & Yaroslava Shvedova in the 2nd Round on their way to reaching the final.
While the German would reach even greater heights at Wimbledon two years later, reaching her only slam final, "Lisicki's Law" has continued to apply throughout the majority of her career, as injuries have continued to plague her time on tour. Still, her run of results at SW19 from 2009-14 proved to be one of the best stretches ever -- QF-DNP-SF-QF-F-QF -- for a player who never won the title.
While her ranking has hovered in the #200's in the final years of the decade, the re-appearance of Lisicki's smile -- even when the results haven't been there for her -- come the start of each grass court season has become as reliable as a sunrise.
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After having missed 51 weeks of action since her Wimbledon title run in '10 due to foot lacerations after stepping on broken glass (and then later emergency surgery to remove an embolism), two-time defending Ladies champ Serena Williams had returned the previous week in Eastbourne.
As it turned out, after Serena and sister Venus had dominated Wimbledon for eleven years (combining to win nine titles, with five other final appearances), both lost in the 4th Round on "unlucky" Day 7, leaving SW19 on the same day for the first time... and making the defeat of world #1 Caroline Wozniacki on that same Monday the "B" story for the day in the women's draw. "Definitely not our best day," Venus said in understated fashion after exiting immediately on the heels of her sister.
#7-seed Serena, who'd recorded her 200th career slam match win in the 1st Round, posted a win over Simona Halep (a three-setter in their first career meeting, in an event that was the Romanian's SW19 debut) and knocked off #26 Maria Kirilenko, but #9 Marion Bartoli proved to be too much to handle.
Bartoli, a Ladies finalist in '07, had defeated Kvitova in the Eastbourne final heading into Wimbledon, but had to scrape and claw (and everything else) her way to her Round of 16 meeting with Williams. She saved three MP vs. Lourdes Dominguez Lino in the 2nd Round (during which she incurred a coaching warning), then a round later staged a comeback from a break deficit in the 3rd set vs. #21 Flavia Pennetta, winning 9-7 in the deciding set. In that one, the Pastry rode an angry wave of arguments with chair umpire Mariana Alves and her own parents (she ordered her father Walter to leave his seat in the stands) to win in 3:09 as she and the Italian combined for 110 winners. It took Bartoli four MP to finally win, and she did so on a Pennetta DF.
Bartoli defeated Williams 6-3/7-6 after Serena had saved three MP to reach a 2nd set TB, then another soon afterward. Bartoli finally won on MP #5 with a service winner to claim what proved to be her only win in four career match-ups with Williams. A round later, Bartoli saved three MP to force a 3rd set against Lisicki, where her journey finally ended.
At the time, I wrote, "Even as the younger generation begins to assert itself more in future slams, if there's a veteran player who could hit her peak and 'steal' a slam over the next season or two, it might just be Bartoli." Right on cue, she won Wimbledon two years later, then retired without ever playing another major.
The loss dropped Serena out of the Top 100 for the first time since August 2006, as she emerged from London ranked #175 (her lowest since November 1997 at age 16). She'd be back in the Top 100 a month later, and reached the U.S. Open final later that summer. A year later, she'd win her third title at SW19 in four years.
Meanwhile, after taking part in a bit of history -- her 2:55 2nd Round match vs. 40-year old Kimiko Date-Krumm was the first full women's match played under the Centre Court roof, which had debuted in '09 -- Venus experienced a severe case of deja vu. A year after losing to Tsvetana Pironkova in the QF, she fell once again to the Bulgarian in the Round of 16. By the same 6-2/6-3 score, no less.
As for Pironkova, rarely had a player been so regularly disappointing for fifty weeks a year, but also so surprising for the other two. Not only did she defeat Williams at this Wimbledon, but she also upset '10 finalist Vera Zvonareva in the 3rd Round (also by a 6-2/6-3 score!), who'd defeated *her* in the semis a year earlier.
It would take Pironkova another three and a half years before she'd finally win her first (and only) tour singles titles, a '14 Sydney triumph over Angelique Kerber. She *would* manage to extend her slam success beyond the borders of London, reaching a Round of 16 at the U.S. Open in' 12 and the QF at Roland Garros in '16. A shoulder injury stopped her slam appearance streak at 49 in '17, ending her season early. She became a mother in April 2018, and has not played since.
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Draw notes:
* - for the first time since 1913, all the Wimbledon quarterfinals hailed from Europe
* - a year after going 0-6 in the 1st Round, three Brits reached the 2nd Round. Laura Robson (again a wild card) defeated Angelique Kerberin the 1st Round, then lost to Sharapova a round later. Elena Baltacha fell to Peng Shuai in the 2nd, while future GBR Fed Cup captain Anne Keothavong was Kvitova's 2nd Round victim.
* - Canadian Rebecca Marino, a rising Top 100 player in '11, on the heels of her first career 3rd Round result at a major in Paris, lost in the 2nd Round to Roberta Vinci. As the 2019 version of Wimbledon arrives, she's yet to play in the event since. After losing in the 1st Round of the Australian Open in '12, Marino took a break from the sport due to mental and physical fatigue that lasted most of the season. Her next slam appearance was in Melbourne in '13. After losing her opening match there, a month later she retired from the sport, not to return until late 2017, when she went public with her ongoing battle with depression. Marino had immediate success on the ITF circuit, but has yet to play another MD match at a major, though she did participate in qualifying for both the Australian Open and Roland Garros in '19.
* - Jelena Dokic lost a 1st Rounder to Francesca Schiavone, 6-4/1-6/6-3, in what proved to be the Aussie's final Wimbledon appearance. As a teenager, Dokic has pulled off one of the tournament's most memorable upsets with a 1st Round takedown of #1-ranked Martina Hingis in 1999 in just her third career slam MD appearance. She reached the QF that year at age 16, a year later was in the semifinals, and then followed that up with two more Round of 16 results in 2001-02. Dokic reached at least the Round of 16 in 7 of 12 majors starting with the '99 Wimbledon. Controversy and familial discord, which included a history of mental and physical abuse that was later detailed in her 2017 autobiography, dogged her entire career, though she still managed to win six WTA titles and rank as high as #4. After several lean years, during which she failed to appear in 15 of 16 slam MD from 2005-08, Dokic put on an exciting and heartwarming QF run in 2009 at the Australian Open.
In the 3rd Round, three years after defeating a then-teenaged Tamira Paszek in a 10-8 3rd set at Wimbledon, Schiavone found herself in tooth-and-nail combat with the Austrian yet again. This time, though, it was Paszek who survived, even as Schiavone twice served for the match at 8-7 and 9-8. At 3:41, the match came up just five minutes short of becoming the longest women's contest in Wimbledon history, as Paszek won an 11-9 3rd set.
* - Sania Mirza played in her final Wimbledon singles competition. Four years later, the doubles specialist (three months after climbing into the #1 ranking) would finally win her maiden slam WD title (w/ Martina Hingis) at SW19.
* - 2010 girls champion Kristyna Pliskova made her slam MD debut as a qualifier, losing to Marion Bartoli in the 1st Round
* - Magdalena Rybarikova retired from her 1st Round match vs. Victoria Azarenka, her fourth of what would be seven consecutive opening round exits at the All-England Club. The Slovak's injury-plagued career would reach its zenith in London six years later with a semifinal run. From 2008-18, though, Rybarikova escaped the 1st Round just twice.
* - Jelena Jankovic lost in the 1st Round to Maria Jose Martinez-Sanchez, her worst Wimbledon result since her debut in 2004 (and her worst at a slam since the '05 RG). While the Serb reached the Round of 16 five times at SW19, Wimbledon remains the only major at which the (retired... not quite retired?) former #1 never reached the semifinals.
* - Aga Radwanska's 2nd Round loss to Czech Petra Cetkovska, a match in which the Pole led 6-3/5-4 & 30/30, proved to be her worst career result at Wimbledon, only matched by the 2005 girls champion's final SW19 appearance as a pro in 2018.
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Czech women had a hand on all the women's titles at Wimbledon, as in addition to Kvitova's win in the Ladies singles Czechs won titles in the doubles and mixed, as well.
Czech Kveta Peschke and Slovenian partner Katarina Srebotnik, who entered as likely the best active duo *without* a slam WD title, finally commandeered the winner's circle, claiming their maiden doubles crowns at SW19 with a win over Sabine Lisicki & Samantha Stosur. Srebotnik, who'd previously won five MX titles, had been 0-4 in slam WD finals.
Peschke & Srebotnik became doubles co-#1's after Wimbledon, and held the position for ten weeks. While still an active player at age 38 in 2019, Srebotnik has yet to win another slam crown. Meanwhile, Peschke continues to play into her early 40's, and returned to the Wimbledon doubles final in 2018 with Nicole Melichar. Her '11 WD crown remains her only slam win.
Czech Iveta Benesova won her maiden slam crown with Austrian Jurgen Melzer, defeated Elena Vesnina & Mahesh Bhupathi in the MX final. It proved to be the only slam title for Benesova, who reached the Top 25 in singles in 2009. She and Melzer were married in September 2012.
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15-year old Ashleigh Barty won the girls title, becoming the first Aussie to take the junior title in London since Debbie Freeman in '80, and the first Australian girl to win any slam singles crown since Jelena Dokic at the U.S. Open in '98. The #12 seed, who defeated Madison Keys in the 3rd Round, then Vicky Duval in the QF, put away Russian #3-seed Irina Khromacheva 7-5/7-6 in the final. It was Khromacheva's only slam singles final of her junior career, during which she played in five in doubles (going 3-2 from 2010-12 while reaching at least one GD final at all four majors).
Luke Saville won the boys title, making the '11 Wimbledon event the first time Australians had swept the junior singles titles at a slam outside the AO since the 1968 Roland Garros.
Eugenie Bouchard & Grace Min won the doubles, defeating Demi Schuurs & Tang Haochen in the final. Schuurs was playing in her third consecutive junior slam final, going 1-2.
In the third year of wheelchair competition at Wimbledon, Esther Vergeer claimed her third doubles title, as she and Dutch countrywoman Sharon Walraven successfully defended their crown with a win in the final over another all-Dutch duo, Jiske Griffioen & Aniek Van Koot. Vergeer had previously won six slam doubles crowns with Griffioen.
The title would be Vergeer's last at Wimbledon. She's suffered her only career defeat at the event in the doubles semifinals in 2012 in what was her final slam competition.
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With still no announcement imminent about her possible return to the WTA tour, Martina Hingis once again participated in the Wimbledon Legends competiton. Teaming with Lindsay Davenport, the pair won the title, defeating Martina Navratilova & Jana Novotna in the final.
At the conclusion of the network's weekend coverage, NBC announced the end of its 43-year relationship with Wimbledon, which would shift exclusively to ESPN in the U.S. in 2012. While the quality of the network's coverage had gone down significantly in later years, with time-delayed and "embargoed" matches making a mess of things, NBC's traditional coverage of the event had a one time been groundbreaking, with the creation of the "Breakfast at Wimbledon" concept, the commentary of Bud Collins, and the first live coverage of the men's final in 1979 serving to revolutionize coverage of the sport in the United States. And, of course, there was also the iconic theme music...
SEEN AT THE AELTC:
Bethanie Mattek-Sands (courtesy of Lady Gaga's designer), on and off court...
Venus'... romper?
In a rare moment of tennis certitude, on the 183rd day of 2011, a champion was born on Centre Court.
Sometimes when a player LOOKS like she's got "it," that indefinable quality that makes a champion, she really does. On occasional instances, such as when a young Russian validated all previous whispers of her virtues seven years ago in southwest London, the gestation period before such an achiever's "coming of age" is a short one. In firing the first salvo for her tennis generation by claiming the Wimbledon Ladies title in a straight sets 6-3/6-4 victory today over Maria Sharapova (that aforementioned Russian), 21-year old Czech Petra Kvitova proved that she, too, has "it."
Tennis legend Billie Jean King has always believed that "pressure is a privilege" in the sport, and that any time a player manages to put themselves into position to do something great on a grand stage they should never allow themselves to be sold short, to exit the day without having given themselves their best chance to be successful and/or performed at the peak of their abilities. When the dust finally settles at the end of a grand slam event, according to BJK's principle, regret should never be part of the conversation. Over the last few years, though, that's pretty much been ALL there's been when it's come to the latest generation of women's tennis stars who'll soon be called upon to carry the burden of the WTA tour on their shoulders once the last of the previous group of champions is gone. ...
Enter Kvitova, who was more than worthy of the pressure she had the privilege to thrive under on this day. It was apparent that the Czech was determined to not be the next name on the "failed" list, but the first on an entirely new one altogether. Rather than fumble around trying to determine what it would take for her to be a slam champion, Kvitova simply went out and became one. No Shakespearean drama necessary. No handwringing required. For some players, slam titles can come after years of work, trial and error, and heartbreak. For others, the path to ultimate success is recognized as a straight line that is the shortest distance between two points. It comes naturally. It's part of their DNA. Sometimes it's just that simple.
In 2004, it was Sharapova who cut through all the pretense and was bold enough to play Serena Williams face-up in the Wimbledon final, defeating her at her own game with fearless groundstrokes and big serves and the inner belief that there was no reason why she SHOULDN'T win. Of course, now at age 24, the Russian has already lived through the sort of tough times that often put an end to such thinking. Before this weekend, she hadn't reached a slam final in three and a half years, the result of rotator cuff surgery in October '08 that took her out of the sport for ten months and wreaked havoc with her serve (as well as the confidence its strength had always infused into the rest of her game). But, deep inside, that old feeling was still there. "I always felt like I had a lot better things in me," she said the other day. Finally, this spring on the European clay, Sharapova rediscovered the confidence in her ability to call upon her old fearless game in a match's crucial moments. She won in Rome, then made the semis at Roland Garros. In reaching her first Wimbledon final since she won the title at the All-England Club seven years earlier, the next logical step seemed to be to re-assume her place atop the game by lifting another Venus Rosewater Dish.
The "x" factor for this final, though, was that no one could be sure of what was precisely going to happen inside the Czech in her first grand slam final. As Kvitova has spent more and more time in the spotlight over the past year, her game has been described as notoriously streaky. But it's also positively screamed that it was capable of very big things. From the huge lefty serve to the powerful groundstrokes and natural inclination toward aggressiveness on the court, the shy Czech sports a game that is anything but bashful. When she's managed to avoid the sort of walkabout moments that cost her a set in the semifinals against Victoria Azarenka, she's often been an overwhelming presence on court this year. As she lined up to serve to open the Wimbledon final against world #6 Sharapova, she did so with the knowledge that she'd already managed to defeat -- dominate, really -- the likes of #2 Kim Clijsters, #3 Vera Zvonareva, #4 Li Na and #5 Azarenka this season.
From the outset of the match, a constant series of moments arose which served to test Kvitova's mettle. On nearly every occasion, the Czech responded with preternatural calm in the heat of battle. ...
(Kvitova) played with a cleanliness that tends to make her unstoppable. With only three errors in her column for the set, the Czech was giving away virtually nothing, and preventing Sharapova from taking anything, either. At the conclusion of the set, after going through the entire fortnight by releasing sudden Rottweiler-esque (well, if they made six-foot tall Rottweilers, that is) barks as punctuations to moments of triumph, Kvitova chose to coolly walk to her chair with a clenched fist.
She knew her work wasn't finished. And with such tennis luminaries as King, Martina Navratilova (her childhood idol, and the last lefty to win Wimbledon), Jana Novotna (the last Czech), Ann Jones (another lefty SW19 champ) and others watching from the Royal Box, Kvitova wasn't about to get ahead of herself.
With the championship within her grasp, (Kvitova) didn't slow down to think about the moment. Using the pressure of her serve and big groundstrokes to coax errors out of Sharapova, Kvitova held for 5-3. Then, serving at 5-4, the Czech would provide nary a single crack in her game's foundation for the Russian to even think about taking advantage of. With the title on her racket, Kvitova stepped to the baseline and raced to a 40/love lead.
At triple match point, she'd managed to get to within a single shot of the Wimbledon title without firing an ace. "Inconceivable!," one might have though prior to the match. Yet, there she stood. As I watched from Backspin HQ, in my head, I couldn't help but think, "Come on, hit an ace. It's be a great way to end it." Then Kvitova reared back and blasted her first ace of the day, right down the service "t." THAT is how you do it, folks.
In the process of the ceremony in which she was handed the Ladies championship dish, Kvitova managed a smile and wave to Navratilova, who was dutifully using her cell phone to film the greatest moment (so far) of the career of a player she'd inspired when she was a child. A few seats down the row, Novotna applauded her countrywoman, maybe wondering what it must feel like to win a Wimbledon title on your FIRST attempt in the final, but also surely knowing the pure joy of what it feels like to actually win one at all. Following the on-court interview conducted by the BBC's Sue Barker, the former slam titlist ('76 RG) asked Kvitova, "Ready for your lap of honor?" "Yes, I'm ready," the Czech happily chirped back. Not that she really needed to say it... her performance in the final on this Saturday had already spoken volumes about her.
In her celebration after match point, one could never quite tell if Kvitova actually kissed the Wimbledon lawn, as her shielding hands hid the visual evidence. Truthfully, it's probably a good thing that the secret remains between her and the turf. After all, one gets the feeling that this is only the beginning of what will be a beautiful friendship.
* - "I'm playing for so many years, so this is, we say, the 'cherry on the cake.'" - Petra Kvitova
* - "She was a total champion. (Yet) she is just an ordinary girl. She's standing with both feet on the ground. And I think that's very, very important for success in these matches." - David Kotyza, Kvitova's coach
* - "It's just been a long, arduous road. To stand up, still, is pretty awesome." - Serena Williams, on her return after a nearly year-long absence following foot lacerations, two operations, clots in her lungs, and emergency surgery to remove an embolism
* - "To this day, I don't know. It's like the biggest mystery next to the Loch Ness Monster." - Serena Williams, on how she sliced her foot at a Munich restaurant in July '10
* - "During the injury process, I was setting a lot of timetables for myself, and I never really met those goals. I don't think there's a certain point where you say, 'Oh, I'm back.' I mean, I don't have that much self-esteem. I don't think anyone really does." - Maria Sharapova
* - "Well, you just have to have to shut up and stop complaining because you have a pretty damn good life." - Victoria Azarenka, on her new perspective once she talked with her grandmother when she'd briefly considered quitting the sport
* - "I think her potential is now!" - Amelie Mauresmo, on Kvitova
* - "I don't think this is the only time she'll win here. It's very exciting. A new star." - Martina Navratilova, on Kvitova
* - "I don't want to change, I just want to be like everyone else. I'm nothing special." - Petra Kvitova
