Petra Kvitova was barely four months old when Martina Navratilova swept aside poor Zina Garrison to win her ninth Wimbledon singles title in 1990 and her 18th in total. Yet their paths would cross, their lives connect. Like Navratilova, Kvitova was Czech and when she started tennis people spoke to her about Navratilova. “Like her, you’re a left-hander.” Still it was a stretch to imagine Kvitova could come to Wimbledon at age 21, just as Navratilova had done, and win her first Grand Slam title.
And Navratilova was present to witness what we can call “Petra’s first”. Because you can bet your life on it: there will be others. There was so much to admire about the way she played and dealt with an occasion that would have overwhelmed plenty in her position.
It was her first experience of Centre Court and yet there was no retreat into timidity, and no suggestion of inferiority from a young woman whom the bookmakers and many others did not expect to win. “Sometimes,” the vanquished Maria Sharapova said afterwards, “you play your best because you have that feeling of nothing to lose.” Sharapova couldn’t be more wrong. Kvitova was no outsider casting caution to the wind, playing with the daredevilry of the loser-to-be.
Rather she played like she saw herself as favourite and at most of the big moments, she produced winners that rocked Sharapova and challenged every expectation that she was the likely winner.
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This is not how you expect a 21-year-old debutante to play a Grand Slam final and it was that ability to play her most aggressive shots at critical points in the match that defined her performance. The story of the match was foretold in the first two games; Kvitova hit a tentative forehand into the net to lose her service in the opening game but then, straight off, she returned Sharapova’s service with such power and penetration that you wondered if the favourite would ever hold her serve.
It was her first experience of Centre Court and yet there was no retreat into timidity and no suggestion of inferiority There would be plenty of moments when Sharapova’s talent for hitting excellent service returns threatened to turn the match her way but always, Kvitova found a shot that tilted things her way again. Often the shot was executed when her opponent least expected it. And that’s what made her performance so remarkable, the first-timer’s ability to play a Grand Slam final like she had been here many times before.
Before the match Kvitova spoke about how during her formative years she had been inspired by seeing recordings of Navratilova’s many Grand Slam victories. After the match, she met both Navratilova and the other Czech woman to have won Wimbledon, Jana Novotna: “I spoke with them. They were so happy. I cried after I met them.”
You can imagine too what it was like in Fulnek, Kvitova’s home town in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. She had been trawling the internet the evening before the game when she learnt that Fulnek’s local authorities had erected a big screen in the centre of town where local people could watch the final. Given Fulnek’s 6,000-population, many of the audience would have known Kvitova.
Afterwards it was suggested to her that this was the day a star had been born and though she blushed, she didn’t seem too shocked by the notion: “You think?” she asked, almost playfully, as if she agreed but thought better of acknowledging it. Later somebody talked of it being “her first but not her last Grand Slam”, and it drew from her a telling response. “Well, hopefully not the last,” she said, as if the mere notion of this being the last was the daftest she had ever heard.
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And, yes, there has been a sense of the guard changing in women’s tennis. Though Serena is still young enough and good enough, the Williams sisters have miles on the clock, plenty of wear and tear, too, and there will not be many more Grand Slams for them. Sharapova for one believes this Wimbledon witnessed the shift in power.
“You’re always going to see a younger generation rise up. There’s always going to be a [new] generation. Ultimately they’re going to step up at one point. It happened to be in this tournament. We’ll see whether that continues for the years to come. I mean, for this tournament [Wimbledon], certainly.”
At 24, Sharapova has plenty of good years left. Good, but not easy. Kvitova is going to get better; stronger, harder-hitting and more consistent. More than that, the young woman plays like a born winner.
When it came to the end of her first Grand Slam final, when she led Sharapova 40-love and was about to serve, one felt an inevitable sense that she was about to end the match. There was even the thought that Sharapova, who grunts after playing every shot, was getting ready to grunt for the last time.
But Kvitova denied her even that with an ace so pure that her opponent hardly had time to draw breath let alone play a shot and grunt. Given the ebb and flow of the match, it was an appropriate ending.