London: Defending champion Petra Kvitova took just 35 minutes to reach the Wimbledon second round yesterday while third seed Simona Halep and 2014 runner-up Eugenie Bouchard slumped to defeat at a sweltering All England Club.
Second seed Kvitova raced to a 6-1, 6-0 win over Kiki Bertens, the world number 138 from the Netherlands, on Centre Court.
Kvitova, also the 2011 champion, dropped just one point on serve and next meets Kurumi Nara of Japan for a place in the last 32.
“It’s great to be back on Centre Court and unbelievable to see all the people clapping,” said the Czech, who had been laid low by illness in the week before the tournament.
Kvitova’s only dropped point on serve came on a double fault in the final game of the match.
The powerful 25-year-old left-hander would have been relieved to have enjoyed a brief first round outing as temperatures rocketed to around 30 degrees Celsius.
Today is expected to see a Wimbledon record high of around 35 degrees which would require the heat index, where matches are briefly suspended, to be introduced.
Organisers say the heat rule, which allows for a 10-minute break between the second and third sets of women’s matches, can be used when temperatures rise above 30.1 degrees Celsius.
However, the rule which has been adopted by Wimbledon after lobbying from the WTA, does not apply to men even though they have to slug it out over the best of five sets.
The highest-ever temperature recorded at Wimbledon was 34C in 1976.
Joining Kvitova in the second round was 10th seeded German Angelique Kerber who handed compatriot Carina Witthoeft a 6-0, 6-0 drubbing.
Kerber, a semi-finalist in 2012 and who won the Birmingham tournament on grass in the run-up to Wimbledon, took just 45 minutes to clinch victory, firing 21 winners past the world number 53.
Halep, a semi-finalist in 2014, became the tournament’s biggest casualty so far when she lost 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 to Jana Cepelova of Slovakia.
The 22-year-old Cepelova, ranked 106 in the world, had won only one match on the tour all year before yesterday but had big match experience by beating Serena Williams in Charleston last year. She goes on to face another Romanian, Monica Niculescu, for a place in the last 32.
Also exiting was the sport’s poster girl Bouchard with the 21-year-old Canadian losing 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 to Chinese qualifier Duan Ying-Ying, the world number 117 who had never previously defeated a player inside the top 75.
The defeat was 12th seeded Bouchard’s 12th in her last 14 matches and will see her drop out of the world top 20.