An incredible mid-match surge helped Petra Kvitova see off Elina Svitolina in straight sets to win the WTA Elite Trophy.More accustomed with closing out her years at the WTA Finals, Kvitova has been competing in her maiden second-tier season-ending tournament this week and proved her class in Zuhai with a 6-4 6-2 win.
Kvitova had won all three of the pair’s meetings this season, but Svitolina showed signs of an upset when she raced into a 4-1 lead, breaking the Czech for 3-1 thanks to some dogged baseline defence. However, that perhaps only served to fire up the third seed as she rattled off the next seven games – winning 16 of 18 points on her serve in that run – to take the first set and strike early in the second.
From there, Svitolina was unable to mount a sufficient comeback, only managing to break Kvitova once she had dropped serve a second time and the two-time Wimbledon champion closed out victory with a typically booming serve that the Ukrainian could not control.