Kenin tops the former champion Kvitova in Miami, meets with Gauff

Sofia Kenin won a collision between Grand Slam Champions at the Miami Open of ITAú on Tuesday. With this victory, she built a showdown in the second round against another, newer Grand Slam champion.

Kenin, the Australian Open Champion 2020 from the USA, defeated the new mother and the two-time Wimbledon master Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic at the WTA 1000 hard court event with 6: 4, 7: 5.

Miami: Drawing | Scores | Game

Kenin took 1 hour and 25 minutes to take her head 2-2 with the former Miami champion Kvitova. One of the victories of Kvitova came here in 2018, but Kenin did the work this time in her home state of Florida.

Gauff is waiting: Former Kenin No. 4 in the world will now compete against the current world of world No. 3 in an all-American encounter in the second round. Kenin and Gauuff have divided their four career meetings on the Hologic WTA Tour.

Some of their games were already central to tennis events this decade. In her first meeting, Kenin Gattuff defeated from one before 16 years on the way to her Grand Slam title in the Australian Open round.

And Kenin’s victory against Gauff in the first round of 2023 Wimbledon Space Gaufauf on team and tactical changes. Those led to Gauff’s breathtaking run through the hard court season 2023, which culminated in a Grand Slam title at the US Open.

In her most recent meeting, Gauuff avoided that Wimbledon defeated Kenin 6: 3, 6: 3 in the first round of this year’s Australian Open.

New mother Kvitova is looking for a victory: The former world No. 2 Kvitova, who defeated Elena Rybakina to win the Miami Open title two years ago, gave birth to son Petr last July. Kvitova returned to a famous return to Tour action less than a month ago.

The Czech is still profitable in her three appearances in court since her maternity leave ended. She fell in the first round of Austin and Varvara Gracheva in her Indian Wells start in the first round.

Match moments: Kvitova had five double mistakes in her first two service games on Tuesday, and she left an early break when Kenin started in a turnaround -set feteck -drop shots. Kenin used one of these drop shots to convert her first setpoint and grab the opening frame of 2: 0 down.

Kenin had her first playing point 5: 4 in the second set, but Kvitova found one of her enthusiastic powerful services to get out of this jam and to keep it 5: 5. However, the Czech could not be at risk for long and in two games in a forehand ignition of Kenin lend two more match points.

At the second game of the American, Kvitova sent a backhand and Kenin jumped into the second round. Kvitova had 13 more winners than Kenin in the game, but the 36 casual mistakes of the Czech Doubled Kenin 18.