Eastbourne: Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova advanced to her first grasscourt final in four years by beating Beatriz Haddad Maia 7-6 (5), 6-4 at Eastbourne on Friday.
Kvitova will face defending champion Jelena Ostapenko in the final. The eighth-seeded Latvian defeated 12th-seeded Camila Giorgi 6-2, 6-2 in the other semi-final match.
Back-to-back titles
Haddad Maia had won 12 straight matches on grass including back-to-back singles titles in Nottingham and Birmingham over the last two weeks.
The 14th-seeded Kvitova reached her first final of 2022 and first grasscourt final since Birmingham in 2018.
Kvitova earned the only service break of the match to begin the second set against the 15th-seeded Brazilian.
Straight-set win
The 32-year-old Czech player’s only career loss in five grass-court finals was to Marion Bartoli at Eastbourne in 2011, when Kvitova went on to win Wimbledon for the first time.
Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion and 2018 Wimbledon semi-finalist, needed only 69 minutes to put away her Italian opponent. The 25-year-old Ostapenko beat Anett Kontaveit in straight sets in last year’s final.
In the men’s semi-finals, defending champion Alex de Minaur faces third-seeded Taylor Fritz, and British wild card entry Jack Draper plays Maxime Cressy.
