Petra Kvitova did not come to the US Open planning to reach the quarterfinals or beat a top-five opponent to do so.
\nIt\u2019s been less than nine months, after all, since the two-time Wimbledon winner\u2019s racket-holding hand needed surgery from a knife attack.<\/p>\n
Here she is, though. Kvitova earned the biggest victory of her comeback Sunday night, eliminating No. 3 seed Garbine Muguruza, the reigning Wimbledon champion, by coming back in each set to win 7-6 (3), 6-3 in the fourth round at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came here without any expectations,\u201d the 13th-seeded Kvitova said.<\/p>\n
She is in the quarterfinals in New York for only the second time in 10 tournament appearances; the other such run came in 2015, when Kvitova lost at that stage to eventual champion Flavia Pennetta.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really enjoying it more than before,\u201d Kvitova said.<\/p>\n
Now another showdown looms: Kvitova will play seven-time major champion Venus Williams on Tuesday with a semifinal berth at stake.<\/p>\n
Williams, seeded No. 9, beat Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 earlier Sunday.<\/p>\n
Williams is, at 37, the oldest woman who entered the tournament. She is also the only one left who has won the U.S. Open, collecting titles in 2000 and 2001.<\/p>\n
Asked whether those championships, long ago as they were, offer her any advantage against other players, Williams joked that if other players decide to just hand over matches, she\u2019d gladly take it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m accepting all major credit cards,\u201d Williams said, \u201cand unforced errors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kvitova still hasn\u2019t quite regained full strength in her left hand, the one operated on after being cut by an intruder at her home in the Czech Republic in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven all she\u2019s been gone through,\u201d Muguruza said, \u201cplaying at this level is remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kvitova returned to the tour in late May at the French Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that I can find the right words. It was a difficult time,\u201d Kvitova told the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd after beating Muguruza. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how the journey would end.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Muguruza jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the opening set and earned three break points for a chance to go up 5-1. But Kvitova managed to hold there, erasing that last break chance with a 94 mph ace out wide and starting a run in which she grabbed five of six games.<\/p>\n
Muguruza again moved out front in the tiebreaker, at 3-2, before dropping five points in a row. At 4-3, Muguruza pushed a forehand volley long, then double-faulted to set point, before Kvitova put away an overhead to close it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Petra Kvitova did not come to the US Open planning to reach the quarterfinals or beat a top-five opponent to do so. It\u2019s been less than nine months, after all, since the two-time Wimbledon winner\u2019s racket-holding hand needed surgery from a knife attack. Here she is, though. Kvitova earned the biggest victory of her comeback […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3755,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions\/3755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}