Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova recovered from an embarrassing air swing and a two-game lapse to beat Ana Ivanovic 6-2, 7-6 (2) on Monday for a spot in the Australian Open quarterfinals.
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The 21-year-old Czech was dominant against Ivanovic until her game momentarily came undone near the end of the second set after she missed a routine overhead at the net to allow the former French Open champion to pull to 4-5.
She lost the next eight points to fall behind 6-5 - badly missing on a couple of wild groundstrokes - and only managed to force a tiebreaker with two big serves out wide in the 12th game.
Kvitova says it was a "very tough match to end," after she missed her chance to break Ivanovic in the ninth game of the second set.
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