Petra Kvitova reached the fourth round at Wimbledon for only the second time since triumphing at the All England Club nine years ago with a 6-3 7-5 win over Serbian qualifier Natalija Stevanovic in a rain-disrupted encounter on Saturday.
The Czech ninth seed needed four set points to seal the first set as menacing dark clouds hovered over Court Two, with her 225th ranked opponent slapping a service return long.
A clearly distracted Stevanovic struggled to forget the incident and ended up being broken after Kvitova's service return kissed the line. However, Kvitova, who also won the grasscourt major in 2011, saw her serve falter and she allowed Stevanovic to take a 5-4 lead as the heavens opened over southwest London.
Stevanovic, who overcame a life-threatening cyst on her liver when she was 21, stretched the Czech to six deuces, three break points and even won the longest rally of the match, capping off a breathtaking 20-shot exchange with a forehand winner into the corner.
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