2011 Sony Ericsson Open WTA Part 11: Svetlana Kuznetsova and Petra Kvitova
World Number 15 Svetlana Kuznetsova
Svetlana Kuznetsova is a Russian tennis player, who is currently ranked World Number 15. She has been part of the Women’s Tennis Association since 2000. The right-handed pro has been playing tennis in a professional capacity for over ten years, making her
one of the most experienced players on the WTA Top Twenty.
Kuznetsova is 26 years old, and has won a total of thirteen WTA Tour singles titles. Her career-high ranking is World Number 2, which she reached in the year 2007.
The Russian pro left her mark on the Sony Ericsson Open in 2006, when she won the title as World Number 14. Kuznetsova defeated players such as Vera Zvonareva, Martina Hingis, seventh seed Patty Schnyder, Japanese pro Ai Sugiyama to reach the semi-finals
against Amelie Mauresmo, who was ranked World Number 1 at the time. The Russian scored a surprising upset over her French pro, and went on to defeat compatriot Maria Sharapova to win the title. She has, however, been unable to reclaim the trophy since then.
Her last appearance at the tournament was at the 2010 Sony Ericsson, where she made it as far as the fourth round before being ousted by Marion Bartoli of France. This year, she was seeded eleventh and could not perform past the third round of the tournament,
and was ousted by Shuai Peng.
World Number 18 Petra Kvitova
Petra Kvitova hails from the Czech Republic, and has been a part of the Women’s Tennis Association since 2006. The player is currently ranked World Number 18, three spots lower than her position of last week. She has won a title of three career titles so
far, two of which she achieved this year in 2011. She also reached her career-high ranking of World Number 14 earlier this year.
The player is 21 years old, and has been part of the WTA since 2006. She has spent almost six years as a professional player. She made her debut at the hard courts of Miami in 2008, two years after turning pro. She received entry into the main draw as a
qualifier, but could not compete against Estonian player Kaia Kanepi and lost the first-round match in three sets.
Her best showing at the event was last year, when she was ranked World Number 65. The Russian defeated Italian pro Tathiana Garbin in the first round, and fell to tennis mama Kim Clijsters in the second round. This year, she is seeded twelfth at the tournament
and will face Russian seventeenth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the third round of the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open today.
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