Petra Kvitova saved a set point in the first set tiebreak, and then saved another set point in the second today when she won the New Haven championship match against Maria Kirklenko. It was a very good match--quite deserving of its final status--and it showed just how much Kirilenko has worked on her already-admirable game.
Commentator Rennae Stubbs--observing Kvitova's second set fatigue, when she "went off"--kept asking what was wrong with the Czech player. Has she never seen Kvitova play?! Kvitova (who didn't drop a set in New Haven) often takes a hard road to get to the end, and sometimes the end just isn't what she had expected. Today, though, she came back more than once to defeat the clever and hard-hitting Kirilenko 7-6, 7-5.
Kvitova, the winner of the U.S. Open Series, won in both Montreal and New Haven.
Top seeds Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond won the doubles championship, defeating 2nd seeds Andrea Hlavackoa and Lucie Hradecka 4-6, 6-0, 10-4.