[14] Petra Kvitova (CZE) vs. [44] Catherine Bellis (USA)
It was their first meeting and it should have been a difficult match for the American to win. Despite the fact that Kvitova is recently back on Tour following her hand injury, she had the more powerful serve and ground strokes to hit her opponent off the court. Of course, that is if she was timing them well and was mentally sharp.
You never know what is going on in the minds of players and sometimes it’s the smallest thing that can distract them and throw them off their game. That must have been the issue tonight as I have never seen Kvitova serve so poorly or play so badly. She never held serve the entire match and won only two games because she broke her opponent.
When things go wrong on the tennis court, you have to take immediate steps to prevent them from spiraling out of control; however, if you are struggling mentally and lack clarity things can unravel quickly. Kvitova just never got her game and even when she had game points on her serve, she could not capitalize. There was no salvaging her game tonight and she will have to figure out why that was the case and how to avoid that from happening again.
Credit to Bellis for sticking to her game plan; while there were some brilliant and heady shots from her, she did nothing exceptional. She simply made Kvitova hit one more ball, used the lob effectively to rattle her opponent and gained the 6-2, 6-0 victory.
Bellis is into her second semifinal of the season and hopes to get to her first final; however, she will have to get past fellow American, Coco Vandeweghe. This should prove to be informative because she can serve and hit the ball just as hard as Kvitova.
SOURCE OF IMAGE: Creative Commons
