Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova insisted Sunday that becoming world number one has never been one of her dreams, although she did concede reaching the pinnacle of the sport would be “nice”. The tall, left-handed Czech was the break-out women’s player of 2011, winning her first slam and jumping from a world ranking of 34 at the start of the year to number two. The 21-year-old opened 2011 by winning the Brisbane International on her way to claiming six titles, including Wimbledon. She was also part of the Czech team that won the Fed Cup for the first since Czechoslovakia won in 1988. Kvitova had a golden chance to overtake reigning world number one Caroline Wozniacki at last week’s Sydney International until her loss to China’s Li Na in the semi-finals.
However, she is only 295 points behind the Dane and can move to number one if she has a good run at the Australian Open, starting on Monday, and Wozniacki, a semi-finalist in 2011, fails to reach the final four this year. “It’s very close, but still it’s really far away because, you know, many players can be top,” she said on the eve of the year’s first grand slam. Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka is also within reach of the top ranking while Russia’s Maria Sharapova, Samantha Stosur and Li Na also have an outside chance of reaching number one. “I mean, it’s really open now, women’s tennis,” Kvitova added. “Everybody at the top can play really well. I know it’s just some points, but still it’s a really big step.” Kvitova, who became the fifth Czech woman to reach the top five after Martina Navratilova, Hana Mandlikova, Helena Sukova and Jana Novota, said she never dreamed of reaching the heights she has.
