Venus Williams Ousts Petra Kvitova At Indian Wells

7-time Grand Slam Champion Venus Williams was successful in defeating Petra Kvitova by the number 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 last week. She has now made her place in the third round at Indian Wells. Venus Williams, who is currently ranked 36th in the world said, "Today I just fought and tried my hardest. Honestly, a double break is not ideal against a great server, especially a left-hand server."  

Her next match will take place against American Christina McHale, who secured her place after defeating Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova by 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 scores. Kvitova is a 2-time Wimbledon champion and was runner-up to Naomi Osaka in the Australian Open in January. It seemed like she would win over Williams after she broke a 4-3 lead in the third. But Williams immediately broke back and Kvitova was found serving to save the match.

Finally, she had a 40-15 lead in the final games but with two double faults. A lucky netcord bounce for Williams gave her a match point. "Having to play down the whole match and to be able to get that, it was just a fun moment," Venus Williams explained how she felt.

Williams was not able to produce a single ace which made this an unlikely comeback for most, even though she said that her fluctuating serving speed was something 'she needed to do'. She was broken a total of 4 times, only to maintain her consistency in the bruising baseline rallies.

Kvitova described the match as weird and characterised it as her 'worst of the year'. "I took the first set and was leading in the second too. But somehow I gave her chance to comeback in the match and she took it", she explained her emotions.

By: Neha Maheshwari

Content: https://sports.ndtv.com/tennis/indian-wells-venus-williams-ousts-frustrated-petra-kvitova-2005347