Sofia Kenin won a first-round clash between Grand Slam champions at the Miami Open presented by Itaú on Tuesday. With that victory, she set up a second-round showdown against another, more recent Grand Slam champion.
Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion from the United States, defeated new mom and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 7-5 at the WTA 1000 hard-court event.
Miami: Draws | Scores | Order of play
Kenin took 1 hour and 25 minutes to level her head-to-head with former Miami champion Kvitova at 2-2. One of Kvitova’s wins came here in 2018, but Kenin got the job done this time around in her home state of Florida.
Gauff awaits: Former World No. 4 Kenin will now face current World No. 3 Coco Gauff in an all-American second-round encounter. Kenin and Gauff have split their four career meetings on the Hologic WTA Tour.
A couple of their matches have already been pivotal in tennis events during this decade. In their first meeting, Kenin defeated Gauff from one set down en route to her Grand Slam title, in the Australian Open Round of 16 five years ago.
And Kenin’s win over Gauff in the first round of 2023 Wimbledon spurred Gauff on to team and tactical changes. Those led to Gauff’s stunning run through the 2023 summer hard-court season that culminated in a Grand Slam title at the US Open.
In their most recent meeting, Gauff avenged that Wimbledon loss in the first round of this year’s Australian Open, where she defeated Kenin 6-3, 6-3.
New mom Kvitova seeking a win: Former World No. 2 Kvitova, who defeated Elena Rybakina to win the Miami Open title just two years ago, gave birth to son Petr last July. Kvitova made her celebrated return to tour action less than a month ago.
The Czech is still winless in her three appearances on court since her maternity leave ended. She fell to Jodie Burrage in the first round of Austin and to Varvara Gracheva in her Indian Wells opener.
Match moments: Kvitova had five double faults in her first two service games on Tuesday, and she let an early break lead slip away as Kenin deployed deft dropshots in a turnaround first set. Kenin used one of those drop shots to convert her first set point and grab the opening frame from 2-0 down.
Kenin had her first match point at 5-4 in the second set, but Kvitova found one of her vaunted powerful serves to get out of that jam and hold on for 5-5. However, the Czech could not stay out of danger for long, misfiring on a forehand two games later to give Kenin two more match points.
On the American’s second match point, Kvitova sent a backhand flying wide and Kenin skipped into the second round. Kvitova had 13 more winners than Kenin in the match, but the Czech’s 36 unforced errors doubled Kenin’s 18.
