Petra Kvitová

Petra Kvitová, OLY (born 8 March 1990) is a Czech inactive professional tennis player.

Throughout 2006 and 2007, Kvitová captured six ITF singles titles, four of which came in her home nation.

As a junior, Kvitová achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 27 on 9 July 2007.

She also amassed a 35–7 and 20–9 record in singles and doubles respectively.

Her lone Grand Slam tournament appearance as a junior came at the 2007 Wimbledon Championships.

In singles, eighth-seeded Kvitová advanced to the last 16, after beating Jocelyn Rae and Malena Gordo before losing to eventual semifinalist Katarzyna Piter in straight sets.

In doubles, she played alongside fellow Czech Kateřina Vaňková but they fell at the first hurdle to Mariana Duque Mariño and Michelle Larcher de Brito.

Kvitová first attempted to qualify for a WTA tournament at the 2007 Prague Open, but she lost in the second round of qualifying to Ekaterina Ivanova.

She then made her debut in the main draw of a WTA event at the 2007 Nordic Light Open, where she lost in the first round to Marta Domachowska in three sets.

She also made her Fed Cup debut in 2007, playing alongside Barbora Strýcová in doubles, where they lost to the Spanish team of Nuria Llagostera Vives and Virginia Ruano Pascual.

She was coached by David Kotyza, from November 2008 till January 2016.

Kvitová began 2008 by upsetting Anabel Medina Garrigues in her opening match in Paris for her first ever WTA main-draw victory before falling to fourth seed Elena Dementieva.

Then, she racked up her first ever top-10 win by beating world No. 8 and defending champion, Venus Williams in the first round in Memphis.

In April, she played her first Fed Cup singles match where she faced Israeli Shahar Pe'er, which she won in three sets.

She also won her seventh and most recent ITF singles title that same month.

She finished 2008 ranked world No. 44.

Kvitová first gained notice by defeating then-world No. 1 Dinara Safina in the third round of the 2009 US Open.

Kvitová started 2009 impressively by reaching her first final, at the Hobart International, having defeated Sally Peers, Alona Bondarenko, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Virginie Razzano en route.

There, she defeated compatriot Iveta Benešová to lift her maiden career title.

This was followed by her first major semifinal appearance at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.

Known for her powerful left-handed groundstrokes and variety, Kvitová has won 31 career singles titles, including two major titles at Wimbledon in 2011 and in 2014.

Her career-high ranking of world No. 2 was achieved on 31 October 2011.

Then, during her breakthrough season in 2011, Kvitová won her first major title at Wimbledon over Maria Sharapova in the final, and becoming the first player of either gender born in the 1990s to win a major.

At the end of the season, she won the WTA Championships on her debut.

She also helped lead the Czech Republic to victory in the Fed Cup that same year, making it the Czech Republic's first such title as an independent nation.

In 2012, Kvitová reached the semifinals of the Australian and French Opens, and was crowned the US Open Series champion.

That same year, she also won the Hopman Cup alongside Tomáš Berdych.

In 2014, she won her second major title at Wimbledon, defeating Eugenie Bouchard in the final.

In 2015, Kvitová completed the feat of reaching at least the quarterfinals of all four majors after her quarterfinal debut at the US Open.

She also won a bronze medal in singles while representing the Czech Republic at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

In 2016, she won the WTA Elite Trophy on her debut, thus becoming the first player ever to win both categories of year-end championships on debut.

Kvitová then made her Grand Slam tournament debut appearance at the French Open, and went to the last 16 where she lost to Kaia Kanepi in three sets, having defeated Akiko Morigami, Samantha Stosur and 12th seed Ágnes Szávay en route.

Kvitová then made her Olympics debut at the Beijing Olympics, partnering Lucie Šafářová in doubles where the team lost to Australian pair of Stosur and Rennae Stubbs in the first round.

In October, she reached the quarterfinals in Zurich as a qualifier where she lost to second seed Ana Ivanovic, but the result nevertheless placed her in the top 50 rankings for the first time ever.

In 2019, she reached her first major final in almost five years, at the Australian Open, finishing runner-up to Naomi Osaka.

Petra Kvitová was born to Jiří Kvita, a mayor and former school teacher, and Pavla Kvitová in Bílovec, Moravian-Silesian Region, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic).

She has two elder brothers, Jiří Jr., an engineer, and Libor, a school teacher.

Her father Jiří introduced her to tennis.

During her childhood, she admired Czech American player Martina Navratilova.

Kvitová trained in her Moravian hometown, Fulnek, until the age of 16, and was then encouraged by an instructor to pursue a professional career in tennis.