Wimbledon: Serena Williams Wins First Set Over Petra Kvitova In Tiebreak

After Kvitova was broken in the eighth game of the first set, two more holds from each player brought the first set to a deciding tiebreak.

Serena opened the tiebreak with a service winner up the middle. Kvitova challenged the call, but the ball clearly hit a good deal of the line. 1-0 Serena.

Serena then earned a quick minibreak as Kvitova tried to hit a deep forehand behind Serena, but powered it just long. 2-0 Serena.

On the next rally, Kvitova tried to go down the line with a forehand on the run, but hit it into the tape on the high part of the net near the post. 3-0 Serena.

Up two minibreaks, Serena hit a hard first serve that jammed Kvitova on her forehand side, forcing her return into the bottom of the net. 4-0 Serena.

Kvitova successfully challenged a would-be ace on Serena’s next service point, and then successfully approached off of a second serve return to bring herself to net, where she won the point with a deft forehand volley. 4-1 Serena.

Back on her own serve, Kvitova spun in an ace out-wide, short in the box to pull herself back into the breaker. 4-2 Serena.

Serena then was forced into a backhand error from the middle of the court off of a deep Kvitova shot up the middle on the next point. 4-3 Serena.

Kvitova had an open look at what would have been a forehand winner up the line to tie the breaker. But she made a mess of the low ball, sending it well wide of the doubles alley. 5-3 Serena.

Serena smelt blood, and hit an unreturnable serve up the middle to give herself a triple set point. 6-3 Serena.

After hitting her first serve wildly wide, a deep shot on Kvitova’s first groundstroke drew a forehand error from Serena in the top of the net. 6-4 Serena.

Kvitova then saved a second set point by jamming Serena with her serve on the backhand side, drawing a forced backhand error that floated well wide. 6-5 Serena.

But Serena conceded no more, winning the tiebreak 7-5 with a perfect serve into the wide corner that Kvitova could barely get a racquet on.

The 58 minute set puts the defending champion just a set away from her third consecutive Wimbledon final.