Petra Kvitova takes down Mona Barthel in the second round brawl – Western and Southern Open 2012
Newly ranked world number five, Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic, carried on her momentum at Cincinnati and won her opening clash against the German age fellow, Mona Barthel, in the second round of the Western and Southern Open
on Wednesday. The fourth seeded Czech formulated a 3-6, 6-2, 7-5, win over the 39th ranked German to book a spot in the pre-quarter-finals of the coveted WTA Premier 5 event.
Kvitova came to Cincinnati after bagging her maiden championship title of the season at Montreal last Monday. She outplayed China’s Li Na in the final of the Rogers Cup to enter the winners’ circle and has continued with her impetus
against Barthel to defeat her in their first encounter of the professional career.
It was not a convincing performance from the world number five against the inferior ranked German and she was barely able to cross the winning line. She was off to her usual sloppy start and dropped the opener to fall on her back
foot. She came back very strongly in the very next set of the match and blazed her way past Barthel to level the contest at one-all. The fourth seeded Czech had a fierce battle in the decisive set but her class prevailed in the end and she wrapped up victory
in the 12th game to finish at 7-5.
"She played really well in the first set. She was really aggressive from the beginning," Kvitova said. "The humidity and heat and everything was bad for me because of my asthma, but fortunately my inhaler helped me, and I had everything
like gels and bars to get energy and still be in the game today. I'm really glad I fought hard again and won - it wasn't a very nice score on the scoreboard, but I'm really glad that I'm through to the next round, at least."
Kvitova is slated to take on the unseeded Chinese contender, Shuai Peng, in the third round of the tournament. Peng registered two back-to-back upsets in the initial rounds, pounding the 13th seed Jelena Jankovic and
then Roberta Vinci, to reach the third round.
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