Mutua Madrid Open 2019: Petra Kvitova Passes Kristina Mladenovic Test

World no. 2 Petra Kvitova defeated Kristina Mladenovic 6-3, 7-6 in the 2nd round of the Mutua Madrid Open 2019. With this victory, Kvitova reached the last 16 of the Mutua Madrid Open 2019.

The defending champion, Petra Kvitova came into the match, seeking eighth straight victory at the Madrid Open. This was the sixth consecutive victory for Petra Kvitova over Kristina Mladenovic.

Petra Kvitova was also looking for her sixth straight game on the WTA circuit. She won the Stuttgart Open title last week. The World no. 2 started her Mutua Madrid Open 2019 campaign with a comfortable 6-1, 6-4 victory over Sofia Kenin.

While the 2017 runner up, Kristina Mladenovic was looking to turn things around after her series of defeats against the Czech. Coming from the qualifying rounds, Mladenovic won her first match 6-3, 6-1 at the Mutua Madrid Open 2019 comprehensively over Barbora Strycova. Mladenovic started the 2018 edition with no. 11 at the WTA leaderboards. But a series of poor performance slipped her to the no. 62 in the world. She bounced back at the end of the season reaching the 43rd position in the rankings.

In the first set, Kvitova broke the opening service game of Mladenovic. But the French broke back in the next game. It was the Czech who again broke Kristina’s serve at the 8th game of the 1st set. The break helped Petra Kvitova to conquer the first set 6-3.

Kvitova took the momentum to the second set. The second set was a replica of the first with Petra Kvitova getting an early break in the first game. But Mladenovic fought back hard to break back in the 5th game of the second set. The set then went on till the tiebreaker with both the players holding their serve. The tiebreaker was quite an equal one till 5-5. But it was Petra Kvitova who won the crucial points after to win the tiebreaker 7-5. Kvitova won the match in 1 hour and 55 minutes.

Petra Kvitova said after the match, ” Maybe I am going to have a glass of wine.” Kvitova will face either Sorana Cirstea or Carolina Garcia in the 3rd round of Mutua Madrid Open 2019.