Petra Kvitova wins Wimbledon ladies title 2011
Martina Navratilova, the greatest of Wimbledon's women's champions, had tipped her compatriot and fellow left-hander Petra Kvitova to cause an upset in the ladies' singles final at the 125th Championships, and the Czech duly and excitingly obliged, obliterating the ambitions of a second Wimbledon win for the hot favourite Maria Sharapova - and in straight sets, too.
Kvitova won 6-3, 6-4 in one hour 25 minutes and though Sharapova's play fell well below her best levels, it was in no small part due to the big-hitting torrent directed at her by the 21-year-old whose first, but surely not last, Grand Slam victory this was. She has compared her own power tennis to that of the 2009 US Open winner Juan Martin del Potro and it seemed she certainly has a point.
Kvitova now finds herself £1.1m better off and becomes the youngest champion since Sharapova herself lifted the Venus Rosewater Dish in 2004 at the age of 17.
In addition to Navratilova, there were eight other former ladies' singles champions in the Royal Box, gathered to watch what many in the capacity crowd considered would be a formality for the 24-year-old Sharapova. The Russian promptly reinforced those opinions by breaking in the opening game on a pair of Kvitova forehand errors and a rasping forehand rocket of her own.
But the Czech, wearing a plaster on her right thigh as she had done throughout the fortnight, responded bravely and aggressively - an attitude she was to keep up from start to finish - to break back and it was quickly apparent that Sharapova would need to dig very deep indeed if she was to weather the hard-hitting and bigger-serving Kvitova.
To add to her woes, double faults began to creep into the Sharapova game but early on in the battle the Czech's tendency to over-hit was enough to keep Sharapova in with a good shout, or more accurately a shriek, of her second Wimbledon title. However, she was sometimes reduced to groans as she stretched for deep bullet returns that were giving Kvitova more confidence with every passing minute on Centre Court.
The second, and crucial, break of the Sharapova serve came in the sixth game, a self-inflicted disaster on the back of a brace of double faults. It meant that she spent longer than usual communing with the back stop in her trademark moments of meditation between points, even if that routine did not seem to help her come up with the winning game plan.
It was The Day of the Sluggers and Kvitova proved to be the champion at this. She held for 5-3 at a cost of one point, was denied a set point on the Sharapova serve by a Russian ace, but then served out confidently to love for the first set in 40 minutes. Sharapova's unforced error count already stood at nine.
The Czech momentum was maintained as she broke at the start of the second set with a stunning forehand which clipped the baseline. Kvitova the developed a touch of the jitters - two double faults creeping in at this make-or-break stage - but gathered her composure to put two first serves in and take a 2-0 lead.
The sight of her big day rapidly turning to ashes motivated a Sharapova counter-attack and she pulled level, a little fortunately, when Kvitova failed to put away the simplest of smashes and the Russian lobbed her on break point.
The jubilation among the Sharapova-ites was brief. Missing three game points for a 3-2 lead proved costly as Kvitova slammed away another forehand service return winner to break the Russian serve for a fourth time. Back came Sharapova with a service break of her own to level once more at 3-3 and the Centre Court fans readied themselves for a Sharapova surge. It never came, and was never likely to, as Kvitova's intelligent serving - taking full advantage of her southpaw style - directed the ball into her opponent's body, restricting her opportunities to generate pace of her own on the return.
Another Kvitova break, following Sharapova's sixth double fault, put her ahead once more and all she needed from there was to make sure she did not lose confidence in her service action. When the time came to serve for the title, her first Slam, there was no faltering. She won it to love with her first ace of the match, a rocket down the middle, and knelt in disbelief on the baseline before rising to acknowledge the acclaim. After Navratilova, and more recently Jana Novotna, the Czechs have another worthy ladies' singles champion at Wimbledon.
