Kvitova eases past Ostapenko to clinch Rothesay International title

Eastbourne, June 25 (IANS): Petra Kvitova charged past defending champion and No 8 seed Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 6-2 to clinch the Rothesay International championship and 29th WTA singles title of her career, here on Saturday.

With this win, Kvitova, the Wimbledon champion in 2011 and 2014, is now 5-1 in grass-court finals. The Czech’s only previous loss in a grass-court final came at 2011 Eastbourne, when she finished runner-up to Marion Bartoli in a clash between future Wimbledon champions.

Former World No 2 Kvitova won the first of her 29 titles in 2009; from that point up to now, the only player to win more singles titles on tour is Serena Williams, with 41 during that 13-year timeframe.

The 32-year-old Czech becomes the fifth player over the age of 30 to win a title this year, joining Simona Halep (Melbourne Summer Set 1), Angelique Kerber (Strasbourg), Tatjana Maria (Bogota) and Zhang Shuai (Lyon).

For her third match in a row, No 14 seed Kvitova did not have her serve broken. The Czech faced only one break point in each of her last two matches and in the final, she was forced to erase five, which all came in a marathon 12-minute game at 2-1 in the second set.

Aside from that game, it was generally smooth sailing for Kvitova, who hit 18 winners to just 12 unforced errors on the day.

Kvitova picked up her first singles title since her triumph at Doha in March of 2021, 15 months ago. On the other hand, Ostapenko’s nine-match winning streak on the lawns of Eastbourne came to an end.

The former French Open champion Ostapenko used her powerful groundstrokes well, hitting 21 winners to 19 unforced errors, but she never got a handle on the Kvitova lefty serve and was also broken three times.