Wimbledon 2011 Ladies’ Finals: Petra Kvitova Knocks Off Maria Sharapova In Straight Sets

Match updates from Day 12 at Wimbledon 2011, where World No. 8 Petra Kvitova has upset No. 5 Maria Sharapova to hoist the Venus Rosewater Dish.

No. 8 Petra Kvitova def. No. 5 Maria Sharapova, 6-3 6-4. Sharapova notches her fifth double fault in the very first game, which enables Kvitova to take the first game on the very next point. Kvitova puts away the second game with relative ease, but Sharapova takes the third just as handily, to move to 1-2, and breaks Kvitova in the fourth game to level the set. The fifth game is where it gets interesting, a hotly-contested back-and-forth seesaw that finally goes Kvitova’s way. The momentum will not last: She gets her serve broken in the sixth game, and Sharapova levels the set again.

As readily as Sharapova can take a service game from another, she can’t seem to keep it for herself. Kvitova takes game seven, and game eight, and with a 5-3 lead ... drops a rare Sharapova service game. At 5-4, the 21-year-old World No. 8 is serving for a Wimbledon title.

There is nothing much dramatic in what happens next. The overcorrections that have doomed Sharapova all morning (two more double faults in this set) take over, and after two netted points on the part of her opponent, Petra Kvitova fires off an ace to take the Wimbledon 2011 ladies’ singles title.