World No.5 Elina Svitolina had a tough victory over World No.1o Petra Kvitova in the fourth round of Miami Open 2021. Svitolina improved the one-sided head-to-head against Kvitova and made it 9-3.

Petra Kvitova’s perfect start

Petra Kvitova had a good start to the match. She served well and showed great resilience on her serve, while Svitolina had a horrible start. She was close to getting broken but leveled the opening set 1-1. Surprisingly, Svitolina got the first opportunity to break; Kvitova saved two break points to lead the opening set 2-1.

From 2-1, Svitolina had a slump. The Ukrainian gave a break away and Kvitova led 3-1, after which Kvitova further increased the lead to 4-1. Svitolina had a small upward curve as she held on to cut Kvitova’s lead to 4-2. But relentless pressing from Kvitova forced mistakes from her opponent, giving Petra the set, 6-2.

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Svitolina ended the set with a poor 33 percent first-serve percentage.

Elina Svitolina makes a comeback

The second set saw great improvement from Svitolina’s side. Her first serve percentage rose straight away. In fact, she was matching Kvitova, and break points were hard to come by for the two players. On reaching 3-3, Svitolina was trying to target Kvitova’s second serve.

Petra had a great disguise to clean up Svitolina, successfully hitting drop shots every now and then. Yet unlike the opening set, Svitolina was much prepared and up for it. Until 5-4 with Kvitova leading, the second set didn’t see a single break point.

With Svitolina serving to stay in the match, the situation was tense until the Ukrainian won the game to level the set at 5-5. But the tide had changed, and Svitolina earned a much-deserved break to serve for the set at 6-5. Svitolina had no problems in serving out the set and leveling the match.

A crunch last set

Things started to get a lot harder for Kvitova at the start of the third set. Soon, Kvitova saw herself go 0-3 down in the deciding set. Kvitova’s service was sub-par, and Svitolina easily made good use of it. But Petra quickly got a break back and the third set was poised at 3-1.

Kvitova’s comeback was complete, from 0-3 to 4-3, but her momentum didn’t last long as she was broken at the last moment, which meant her opponent had a chance to serve for the match. But the match continued its topsy-turvy nature as Petra Kvitova broke back.

After a long game, Kvitova was broken again, thus giving Svitolina another chance to serve for the match. This time, Svitolina completed the task and won the match, 6-2, 5-7, 5-7.