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By Chris Oddo | Saturday July 2, 2016

 
Kitova Wimbledon

Rain wreaked havoc on Petra Kvitova's Wimbledon and she couldn't survive the first week.

Photo Source: Julian Finney/Getty

Tennis players at Wimbledon all suffered through rain delays on week one (Google: Venus Williams, Court 18), but two-time champion Petra Kvitova and her Day 6 opponent Ekaterina Makarova may have had it the worst. With many women in the draw already into the fourth round, the Czech had to wait out several rain delays before resuming her second-round match with Makarova in the second set.

More: Top-Seeded Men Contemplate a Wimbledon without Novak Djokovic

It was the last second-round match in play, not finishing until late afternoon on Day 6.

Carrying her rain-induced anxieties with her on the court, Kvitova had more difficulty with the scenario. She could never really unfold her legendary game on the grass and ended up falling to the dangerous Makarova on No.2 Court, 7-5, 7-6(5).

After the match Kvitova tried to make sense of a difficult week at the tournament that has seen her produce her greatest tennis moments.

“I felt like I [was] stuck in the second round for a while,” she said. “Yeah, I think that the tournament was really, like, weird for me this time. I couldn't really describe how. But I was waiting all day long almost every day to be scheduled on, and didn't really have a chance to finish or step on the court.”

Kvitova, who played her first-round match on Court 18, never did make it to Centre Court, the place where she has held the Venus Rosewater aloft twice, after winning titles in 2011 and 2014.

The 26-year-old Czech native said it was difficult to wait out the rain, because she had to invest a great deal of mental energy in order to remain in a state of readiness. As the days dragged on, and rain plagued week one, Kvitova had her first-round match with Sorana Cirstea cancelled and moved to Wednesday. On Friday her second-round match with Makarova was delayed and finally called for darkness after a set. On Saturday she waited as Angelique Kerber’s third-round match with Carina Witthoeft was delayed twice for rain before she could take the court. Collectively, the toll added up critically for Kvitova.

“I think it's when you still like waiting and your nerves are still going, it's always a little bit difficult with energy and everything,” she said. “You just have to focus all day, which then maybe when you step on the court, you don't really have the energy afterwards.”

Makarova hit only 12 winners against 17 unforced errors, but the world No. 35 benefitted from 43 errors off the Kvitova racquet.

“I think that the short balls just killed me today, unfortunately,” Kvitova said. “I missed them a lot. That was probably the key of the match, of the second set. I believed that I could turn it around if I win the second set, but unfortunately I didn't.”

 

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