Kvitova sends Czechs into Fed Cup semis; US prevail
Prague — The Czech Republic advanced to the Fed Cup semifinals after double Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova beat Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-4 Sunday.
Kvitova’s victory in the first reverse singles gave the Czechs an insurmountable 3-0 lead in the first-round match and secured a 10th straight appearance in the last four. They will face Germany or Belarus in the April semifinals.
The second reverse singles was not played but Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky and Jil Teichmann defeated Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova 1-6, 6-4, 10-8 to make the final score 3-1 to the Czechs. The 27-year-old Kvitova, who triumphed at Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014, secured the win against Bencic on her first match point. “It was better today than yesterday, when I played in the Fed Cup again after such a long time away and needed time to get used to it,” she said. “It was a good game from both of us but I wasn’t so nervous as yesterday.”
The big-hitting Czech player put her opponent under pressure with aggressive strokes on the indoor hard court at Prague’s O2 Arena, breaking serve twice in the opening set. Kvitova, who hit a total of 10 aces, then got the decisive break for a 4-3 lead in the second set after Bencic sent a forehand long.
It was a memorable return to the Fed Cup for Kvitova after she was injured in a knife attack at her home in December 2016.
Kvitova, who won the St. Petersburg Open in Russia earlier this month, was a member of the Czech team that won five of the last seven Fed Cups. Karolina Pliskova, the Czech No. 1, missed the first-round match against the Swiss because of illness.
Meanwhile, Venus Williams got the defending champion United States off to a winning start in their Fed Cup first-round tie against the Netherlands on Saturday before CoCo Vandeweghe survived a scare to extend the lead to 2-0.
Cheered on by her younger sister Serena, who is poised to make her own comeback to the sport after a year away and the birth of her daughter, seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus made relatively light work of 124th-ranked Arantxa Rus, winning 6-1, 6-4.
The 37-year-old, who enjoyed a renaissance year in 2017 when she reached two Grand Slam finals, showed some signs of tiring towards the end of the second set even as her clear advantage in skill and raw power were on display.
It was her 1,000th career match and her 22nd singles appearance in a tournament she first played in 1999, but Williams insisted milestones were far from her mind.
“I don’t really know about these milestones when they happen,” she said. “It’s just great to be playing the game that I love — not really going for milestones, but then they happen.” In front of a packed and roaring home crowd in mountainous Asheville, North Carolina, Williams won the toss and served first, closing out the opening game with a searing ace in an early show of intent.