JOHANNA KONTA AND PETRA KVITOVA WIN BIRMINGHAM OPENERS

Written by: Staff on 20th June 2017

JOHANNA KONTA AND PETRA KVITOVA WIN BIRMINGHAM OPENERS |

Great Britain’s Johanna Konta overcame a second set battle to earn her place in the second round of the Aegon Classic Birmingham and continue her recent impressive run of grasscourt form.

“I think the grass here is a little bit faster than in Nottingham. It’s a beautiful grass court here as well, so I’m really enjoying playing on the surface here again. And yeah, I enjoyed my time on the centre court.”

Konta, who was runner-up at last week’s Aegon Open Nottingham, beat Lesia Tsurenko 6-3, 7-6(6) to open her campaign at the Edgbaston Priory Club and set up a tantalizing second round meeting on Thursday with big hitting American Coco Vandeweghe.

“She’s a very big player,” said Konta. “She’s got a lot of fire power, a lot of weapons. And I know she enjoys the grass. I think it was last year or the year before I think she made quarters or fourth round of Wimbledon. So she’s done well on this surface previously. So I think it’ll be a tough match.”

Wednesday’s big match will feature two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova against Manchester’s Naomi Broady after Kvitova beat Tereza Smitkova 6-2, 6-3 on Tuesday.

“I think this first match on the grass was pretty good. I think that I served well and I played good shots from the baseline. I think that she served very well, especially first serve. I had good timing on the court today and I’m happy the way I played. It feels great. I love playing on the grass. I love every moment on that. You know, it’s my favorite surface. I’m really happy to play on it again and be able to play here in Birmingham.”

Broady said of Kvitova: “She’s obviously an incredible grass court player. She’s won Wimbledon twice, so we’ll see. So just great experience, and again, if I go out there and play my game, I’m going to be looking to keep playing to my strengths.”

At the end of another sunny day in Birmingham on Tuesday, former Wimbledon runner-up and 2016 Roland Garros champion Garbine Muguruza, seeded six in Birmingham, came through a bruising encounter with qualifier Elizaveta Kulichkova 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 to win her first match of the 2016 grass-court season.

“I’m happy that I won the match, even though…I didn’t know who was going to win like almost until the last moment,” said Muguruza, who has a rest day on Wednesday. “It’s my first match on grass, my first being in actually Birmingham singles. And it is also tough because the other girl was very, very aggressive, I think extremely aggressive. And she played three matches in the qualis. And I felt that, especially in her confidence and the way she was hitting the ball and moving. And I kind of have to go out there and figure it out a little bit.”

AEGON CLASSIC BIRMINGHAM – BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND
$885,040
JUNE 19 – 25, 2017

RESULTS – JUNE 20, 2017
Women’sSingles – First Round
L. Safarova (CZE) d [3] D. Cibulkova (SVK) 57 76(7) 75
[4] J. Konta (GBR) d L. Tsurenko (UKR) 63 76(6)
[5] K. Mladenovic (FRA) d Y. Duan (CHN) 63 76(2)
[6] G. Muguruza (ESP) d [Q] E. Kulichkova (RUS) 63 36 64
[7] [WC] P. Kvitova (CZE) d [LL] T. Smitkova (CZE) 62 63
[9] D. Gavrilova (AUS) d [Q] S. Hsieh (TPE) 64 64
K. Siniakova (CZE) d N. Hibino (JPN) 75 75
S. Zhang (CHN) d M. Linette (POL) 75 75
A. Riske (USA) d D. Vekic (CRO) 62 76(2)
C. Vandeweghe (USA) d C. Mchale (USA) 64 62
A. Barty (AUS) d [Q] M. Vondrousova (CZE) 75 76(1)
[Q] C. Giorgi (ITA) d N. Vikhlyantseva (RUS) 63 76(4)

ORDER OF PLAY – WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2017

ANN JONES CENTRE COURT start 11:30 am
K. Siniakova (CZE) vs [9] D. Gavrilova (AUS)
[WC] N. Broady (GBR) vs [7] [WC] P. Kvitova (CZE)
[8] B. Strycova (CZE) vs A. Barty (AUS)
[3] D. Cibulkova (SVK) or L. Safarova (CZE) vs N. Osaka (JPN)

COURT 1 start 11:30 am
S. Aoyama (JPN) / Z. Yang (CHN) vs [3] G. Dabrowski (CAN) / Y. Xu (CHN)
H. Chan (TPE) / S. Zhang (CHN) vs A. Cornet (FRA) / Y. Putintseva (KAZ)
N. Kichenok (UKR) / O. Savchuk (UKR) vs [2] A. Spears (USA) / K. Srebotnik (SLO)

Not Before 4:30 pm
R. Atawo (USA) / C. Mchale (USA) vs [WC] N. Broady (GBR) / H. Watson (GBR)