Eighth seed Petra Kvitova has reached the third round at the French Open with a convincing 6-0, 6-4 victory over Lara Arruabarrena of Spain. The Czech has extended her winning streak to 13 matches in a row and will feel confident heading into a third round showdown with 25th seed Anett Kontaveit.
Her power was on full display as she blasted 27 winners while also dominating on serve, winning 74 percent of her first serve points. The first set was a complete mismatch, as Kvitova took the break in the opening game with a searing backhand winner down the line. She was in first gear in an eye, ripping four winners in Arruabarrena’s next service game to grab a quick double-break lead, something she would obviously never relinquish.
There wasn’t much resistance from the world number and Kvitova easily closed out the set to love, winning 12 of the final 16 points to claim the opening set in a mere 23 minutes. The Czech was in fine form and was seemingly on course for an easy victory.
Arruabarrena finally got on the scoreboard with an opening hold to begin the second set, but she was under pressure in her very next service game, facing two break points at 15-40, but Kvitova wasted both with a pair of backhand errors, allowing the Spaniard to hold. A pair of breaks were exchanged with Arruabarrena in the lead at 3-2.
Arruabarrena is a competent dirtballer and she was two games from forcing a third set and nearly came from 40-0 down on Kvitova’s serve, but the World No. 8 escaped to hold for 4-4. The Spaniard was made to pay for missing her half-chance and was broken the next game. Serving out the match, the Czech struck her 27th and final winner of the contest to progress to a most intriguing contest with Kontaveit.
