The fifth seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic defeated the 10th seeded Li Na of China 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 in the final of the Canadian Open Rogers Cup for tennis on Monday.
"I think that it was a really good final with a big fight from both sides and I think that she (Li) played really well," said Kvitova about her opponent Li after the game. "She was very aggressive and made few mistakes."
The opening set was a slugfest won by Kvitova, but only after winning seven of 12 games with both players narrowly winning each game. Most games seemed suspended 40-to-40 as there was no clear leader until the end of the 12 game set.
According to Kvitova, "I was a little bit lucky that I won the first set."
Li rallied at the beginning of the second set delivering a devastating a four-game deficit to Kvitova. Li' s rally eventually overwhelmed her rival taking the set 6-3.
Li conceded that "Kvitova is a tough player."
"I tried to have the same comeback like I did yesterday, but it didn't happen," said Li about her powerful comeback in the second set. "Today I was feeling maybe like 70 percent of the time I played defensively and tried to put the ball deep in the court."
However, in the third set, Kvitova seemed undeterred and began to show dominance early in the final set. Eventually Kvitova finished with a 6-3 set to end the match and game to take the Rogers Cup.
Kvitova and Li will take home 360,000 and 180,000 Canadian dollars (1 U.S. dollar =0.9919 Canadian dollars) respectively.
Kvitova's win also sends her to the U.S. Open later on this year.
The Canadian Open (also known as the Canada Masters), currently sponsored as the Rogers Cup, is an annual tennis tournament held in Canada.
The men's competition is a Masters 1000 event on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tour. The women's competition is a Premier 5 tournament on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tour. The competition is played on hard courts and during the same week in August.
