Kvivota overcomes shaky start in Wimbledon defense
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Returning to the court where she won her first Grand Slam championship a year ago, Petra Kvitova overcame a shaky start and a late rain delay Tuesday to open her Wimbledon title defense with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Akgul Amanmuradova.
The fourth-seeded Czech fell behind 3-0 and 4-1 in the first set on Centre Court before running off seven straight games to take command against the 96th-ranked player from Uzbekistan.
After Kvitova squandered a match point at 5-3 in the second set, play was suspended and the covers rolled onto the court — the first rain break of the tournament.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}When play resumed half an hour later, it took just three minutes to wrap up the match. After Amanmuradova won the first two points to hold for 5-4, Kvitova closed out the match at love, hitting a service winner and two aces and forcing a backhand error.
"It was unbelievable to come back here as the defending champion," said Kvitova, who beat Maria Sharapova in last year's final. "In the beginning I think I was nervous — first match on the grass it's always difficult to know what you can expect. I had a lot of mistakes and then I tried to play my game and go forward."
The 6-foot-3 Amanmuradova pushed Kvitova with her big serve, but lacked the consistency on her ground strokes and has now lost in the first round of all five Wimbledon appearances.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Following Kvivota on Centre Court was second-seeded and two-time men's champion Rafael Nadal, who faced Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil. They were to be followed by No. 4 Andy Murray against former top-10 player Nikolay Davydenko.
On Court 1, fifth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was paired against 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt, who has slipped to 202nd in the rankings and needed a wild card to enter Wimbledon this year.
A day after her sister was eliminated on Court 2, four-time champion and sixth-seeded Serena Williams was playing on the same court against Barbora Zahlavova Strycova.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Playing his first match since having a medical procedure on his heart, 10th-seeded Mardy Fish of the United States served 24 aces and beat Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo of Spain 7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-6 (1) to reach the second round.
The 30-year-old Fish, who reached the quarterfinals last year, hadn't played a competitive match in 2½ months after having an accelerated heartbeat. He played attacking, serve-and-volley tennis and piled up 63 winners against Ramirez-Hidalgo — at 34, the oldest man in the field.
In early women's play, No. 12 Vera Zvonareva completed a 2-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 win over Germany's Mona Barthel in a match that had been suspended by darkness at one set apiece on Monday.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Francesca Schiavone, the 24th-seeded Italian, came from behind to overcome 18-year-old British wild card Laura Robson 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Schiavone, the 2010 French Open champion, received medical treatment after the first set for an apparent muscle problem. She was down 2-3 and 0-40 in the second set but saved the three break points and turned the match around against the 2008 Wimbledon junior champion.
In a men's match between two rising stars of the game, 21-year-old Belgian wild card David Goffin — who reached the fourth round of the French Open and took a set off Roger Federer — rallied from a set down against 19-year-old Bernard Tomic to beat the 20th-seeded Australian, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.