In a major disappointment for home-town folks down under, No. 5 seed, #6 Samantha Stosur of Australia had her hopes dashed for a 1st Grand Slam title by No. 25 seed, # 28 Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 7-6(7-5) 6-3 at the 2011 Australian Open in Melbourne.
The 3rd round match began with a tense 63-minute 1st-set battle in which Stosur succumbed 5-7 in a tie-break. Stosur never seemed to recover, being bludgeoned by 35 clean winners from Kvitova, compared to Stosur’s 11 winners. The match was over after a 32 minute 2nd set 6-3 pounding by Kvitova, one hour and 35 minutes total match time.
Stosur was under the gun from the start, having to rally from love-40 and four service breaks down to hold serve in the opening game of the match. Stosur created ample opportunities throughout the match to break Kvitova but was never really able to come to terms with the left-hander’s wide-angled serve to her backhand. At the same time, Stosur only managed to win 38 per cent of points on her second serve, the usually reliable big kicker that has become such a feature of the French Open runner-up’s game.
In the tie-break, Stosur squandered 3-0 and 5-3 leads – both times when she was serving – and conceded the set on a scorching forehand winner from the fearless Czech.
As in the first set, Stosur had to fight back from love-40 to hold her opening service game of the second set. But that only delayed the painful outcome, with Kvitova grabbing the decisive break in the sixth game and then holding to love for 5-2.
Kvitova then calmly closed out the match to leave Stosur’s fourth-round showings in 2006 and 2010 as her best efforts from nine visits to Melbourne Park.
Kvitova will now face No. 22 seed, #25 Flavia Pennetta of Italy in round 4.
