Scheduled second up on No. 1 Court after Andy Murray, Petra Kvitova didn't have to wait too long to get on court as British Murray made light work of Dutch Robin Haase. The Czech world number two, who is a two-time champion at the All England Club, seemed to pick up where she left off on Tuesday when she delivered a grass court clinic in her first round match, to beat Japan's unseeded Kurumi Nara 6-2, 6-0.
Last year's women's champion started brightly right off the bat with two aces and a love hold. In fact, she took the first seven point of the match when she went up 40-0 in Nara's first service game. The Japanese managed to level the game to deuce but she couldn't stop Kvitova from eventually breaking. The Czech second seed then held her serve again easily before her Japanese opponent finally got on scoreboard after holding a serve of her own in a long game where Kvitova had multiple break point chances. The rest of the set was all but smooth sailing for the world number two and she took it 6-2 when Nara's backhand down-the-line sailed wide.
There was no letdown for Kvitova as she continued her convincing form with a love hold to get things going in the second set. That was followed by many tight games where Nara got to 30-all and even deuce but Kvitova came up with the right answers in the key moments of those games. Soon, the tall Czech had won the set 6-0 to overcome her much shorter Japanese opponent.
The statistics tell the story of the match: Kvitova served impressive 10 aces while Nara hit none, and hit 23 winners to only 3 from her opponent. Kvitova, the world number two, is projected to meet the world number one Serena Williams in the final, which seems like a very possible scenario for the final. However, it is still well over a week away from and they both need to win four more matches before that could happen.
Kvitova next faces Serbian former world number one Jelena Jankovic, seeded 28th, in the round of 32.