Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova beat Mandy Minella of Luxembourg at the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament on Tuesday to stay on course for a potential quarter-final match against Maria Sharapova.
The 21-year-old Czech fifth seed, who defeated Sharapova in the final at the All England Lawn Tennis Club to win her first Grand Slam title in July, coasted to a 6-2, 6-3 victory to reach the third round.
Although Kvitova was on court for 65 minutes, she said she was still some way off her best form.
“My left-handed serve, it’s great. They (my opponents) have a problem sometimes,” said Kvitova.
“But I must improve my serve, because sometimes I have many double faults and not many percentage of first serves. I have still more to improve,” she added.
Before a possible match-up with Sharapova, Kvitova must beat American Vania King, the winner over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 6-4, 7-6 (8/6).
Two-time champion Sharapova, who beat Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand 6-2, 7-5 on Monday, will play Julia Goerges after the German outclassed Greta Arn of Hungary 6-2, 6-1.
Earlier in the day, third seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus eased aside Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 6-1, 6-3 on the centre court to reach the third round.
“(I) always get a little bit nervous before the (first) match since the US Open. I had a good preparation, but playing matches is always different,” said the 22-year-old Azarenka.
“I didn’t play my best tennis today, but I played pretty good. I think I moved very well, so it was enough today. But definitely I need to step up,” she added.
In other second-round action, fourth seed Vera Zvonareva of Russia outplayed Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria 7-5, 6-0, while ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland defeated Angelique Kerber of Germany 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
Sixteenth seed Shahar Peer of Israel went down to Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-1.
