MIAMI GARDENS, Florida — Twelfth-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic won the Miami Open in her 13th appearance, beating seventh-seeded Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan with a marathon tiebreaker in a 7-6 (14), 6-2 victory.
The 33-year-old Kvitova, 10 years older than her opponent, snapped Rybakina’s 13-match winning streak and halted her bid to win the Sunshine Double (Indian Wells and Miami Open).
In winning with will, stalwart defense and one sensational forehand winner on the dead run that electrified the crowd in the second set; the lefty Kvitova captured her 30th WTA singles title.
After Rybakina hit a forehand long on match point, Kvitova raised her arms and put her hands to her head. She was broken just once in the match. It was her 41st career WTA Finals appearance but first final in Miami.
Kvitova, who is from the Czech Republic, disagreed with the announcement Wimbledon would accept Russian players this year. Rybakina, the reigning Wimbledon champion, is from Moscow but represents Kazakhstan.
A past Wimbledon champion, the 6-foot Kvitova won the first-set epic tiebreaker 16-14 on her fifth set point. A suddenly shaky Rybakina hit a forehand long to end the 22-minute tiebreaker; she had been undefeated at 7-0 in tiebreakers in 2023.
The set lasted 66 minutes during which each player held serve until 4-4 then exchanged service breaks. Rybakina finished with 10 aces for the first set while setting the record for most aces in a WTA Tournament, smashing Madison Keys´ mark. Rybakina, who had 12 aces total for the match, finished the tournament with 69 for the tournament.
Kvitova broke Rybakina in second game of the second set with a backhand winner on the service return to go up 2-0.
With the momentum on her side, Kvitova raced out to a 3-0 lead in the second set. Rybakina did well to stay within a break, saving a break point to avoid falling behind 4-0.
But on a day when Kvitova won well over 75 per cent of her service points and faced only two break points, the one break was all the former No.2 needed.
She closed out a love hold with her fifth ace of the match to lead 5-2 and broke Rybakina in the final game to close out the win in 1 hour and 42 minutes.
Kvitova won 78 percent of her service points (52 of 67) and finished with 29 winners to 14 unforced errors.
She faced only one break point in each set and was broken once. She also held Rybakina to just 10 winners off the ground.
Rybakina fired 12 aces in the match. She became the first player since Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2016 to hit 10 or more aces in six consecutive matches in a single tournament.
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