EASTBOURNE, England — Petra Kvitova insists her confidence is “pretty good” despite recent poor results as she advanced to the third round of the Eastbourne International on Tuesday.
Fifth-seeded Kvitova, who has reached just one semifinal this year, beat Timea Babos of Hungary 6-4, 7-6 (5).
“I’m kind of feeling that I am playing well, even though I lost some of the matches in a couple of months,” she said, including a second-round defeat in England at Birmingham last week.
Montreal’s Eugenie Bouchard also advanced with a 6-3, 6-1 win over 15th seed Irina-Camelia Begu. Bouchard never faced break point, while breaking Begu four times on six opportunities.
Bouchard will next face top seed Agnieszka Radwanska.
Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion, broke in the first set to lead 5-4 against Babos but then had to fight off two break points as she closed out the set. In a tense second set, the Czech held four break points to lead 5-4 before Babos took her to a tiebreaker.
“It wasn’t easy today,” said Kvitova. “She was serving really well.”
Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark also reached the third round by crushing seventh-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2, 6-1, while former top-ranked junior Kristina Mladenovic of France upset fourth-seeded Swiss Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 7-5.
I love grass,” said Mladenovic. “I don’t have any surface that I don’t like.”