Kvitova beats Errani to clinch DDF Tennis Championships

The Czech sixth seed got off to a stunning start by breaking her Italian opponent twice in the opening four games with her now-customary clobbering groundstrokes, forcing Errani to call for her coach Pablo Lozano from the sidelines.

Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, wife of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, presenting the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship trophy to Petra Kvitova.

That pep-talk temporarily did the trick, with the fifth seed from Bologna holding serve and breaking Kvitova’s immediately thereafter to pull it back to 4-2. But, the respite was brief as Kvitova broke twice in the next three games to secure the first set 6-2 and edge 1-0 ahead in the second.

Kvitova’s destructive display of terrific tennis up to this point then suddenly disappeared as Errani mixed up her approach and tactics by serve and volleying up at the net.

That strategy worked wonders for Errani, who broke Kvitova’s service thrice and registered six games in a row to ensure a third – and final – set. The first three games there went with serve, yet Kvitova broke in the fourth and never looked back to close out a 6-2, 1-6, 6-1 victory.

“Sara played so well, so it was very tough to beat her,” Kvitova said. “It was up and down. Each of us tried to give it our best and I was lucky in the end.”

Earlier in the evening, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza prevailed in the women’s doubles final against the second-seeded pairing of Nadia Petrova and Katarina Srebotnik.

The Indian-American duo took the first set 6-4, with two breaks of Petrova’s serve in the sixth and 10^th games making amends for the loss of Mattek-Sands’ service in the opener and overturning an initial 3-1 deficit.

However, there was to be no rousing recovery from another sluggish start in the second set as the Russian-Slovenian pairing broke both Mattek-Sands and Mirza’s serves to lead 4-0 before closing out a 6-2 scoreline and forcing a decisive ‘champions’ tie-break’.

With momentum firmly stacked against them, Mattek-Sands and Mirza looked to be really up against it at 6-3 down in this tense first-to-10 affair.

Nonetheless, they reeled off six points in a row to bring up four championship points and – despite letting one slip — Mirza sealed it with a booming ace down the ‘T’.

“It’s not really just about tennis when you play a final,” said Dubai-based Mirza, who has now won two of four tournaments alongside Mattek-Sands this year.

“It’s a lot about nerves and trying to keep positive because it’s not always the best tennis in the final. It’s the ones that are gutsy – or gutsier – than the others at that given point in time that come through.

“In matches like this, the excitement is what people come for and I’m glad we could put up a good show. Someone had to win a tough match like that and I’m glad it was us. It’s always fun when you win!”