Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova routed American teenager Louisa Chirico 6-0, 6-0 in the first round yesterday for her first victory at the Porsche Grand Prix in three years.
The fifth-seeded Kvitova stormed to the double bagel victory in 54 minutes in the first meeting with Chirico, a qualifier ranked 121st.
Chirico’s best chance to get on the scoreboard came in the 10th game where she wasted five game points, two of them with double-faults and another two when Kvitova shots fell unreachable off the net cord.
Kvitova saved the only break-point against her in the next game and then wrapped up matters with a return winner in first match point.
The 26-year-old had lost her first match the past two years in Stuttgart where her best showing to date is a semi-final from 2012. She is also waiting for her first title of the year, with a place in the Indian Wells quarter-finals her top result.
“It was quick. Actually, I didn’t expect that. No, I think two years in a row I lost in the first round here. It’s always the first match on the clay that is not really easy for me. So, I’m very glad how I handled it today,” Kvitova said.
Kvitova hopes to raise her form with the help of new coach Frantisek Cermak, a former doubles player, after she ended a long-term partnership with David Kotyza following a second-round exit at the Australian Open.
“I don’t think that he wants to change anything. I just think that he wants to build what is inside which is like aggressive play and serving well and going forward,” Kvitova said.
Only two of Kvitova’s 17 career titles have come on the slow clay, at the Madrid Masters 2011 and 2015. Her best result at the top event on the dirt, the French Open, is a semi-final in 2012.
The four top seeds—Agnieszka Radwanska, title holder and Australian Open champ Angelique Kerber, Garbine Muguruza and Simona Halep—have first-round byes in Stuttgart.
Kerber opens today against fellow German Annika Beck, who admitted she is “definitely the underdog” after beating Italian lucky loser Camila Giorgi 6-4, 6-2.
Halep also has a German opponent in qualifier Laura Siegemund who rallied from 5-2 down in the second set to oust Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-0, 7-5. “I found the accelerator again in the end,” said Siegemund. “It was important to stay calm.”

Muguruza keen to play mixed doubles with Nadal in Rio
Wimbledon finalist Garbine Muguruza is keen to play at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and would certainly not say no to a mixed doubles with Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal. But Muguruza told reporters at the Porsche Grand Prix that nothing is decided yet whether she has a chance to team up at the August Games with icon Nadal, a 2008 Olympic gold medallist and winner of 14 Grand Slams, including a record nine French Opens.
“One day a journalist comes and says, ‘did you say you are playing with Rafa?’ And I say no. I mean, wow, who doesn’t want to play with Rafa. I want, obviously. But this is not my decision,” she said.
“I think the captains make that decision and I have never played mixed before ...  If I have the chance to play, I’ll be happy to do it. Maybe it’s too much playing singles, doubles and mixed. Maybe it’s crazy. But we’ll see.”
Muguruza, 22, is the best Spanish woman at world number four. She was a surprise Wimbledon finalist last year and has two career singles titles plus five in doubles. “I never played Olympics. So, I’m so excited to hopefully be there.  And in Rio, I don’t know what it has but it makes me more happy because I’m Latin also,” she said.
Isner decides against playing in Rio
American John Isner, meanwhile, will not be available for the Rio Olympics, with the US number one joining Austrian Dominic Thiem in giving the August Games a miss. “It’s a decision I didn’t take lightly,” Isner, ranked 18th, said. Isner lost to silver medallist Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of the 2012 London Olympics. He seems to have his heart set on playing the minor ATP Atlanta stop, which will be held the week before the Games and where he will be going for a record fourth title. “Logistically, it would be pretty much impossible for me to do both,” Isner told US media. It is also reported that as the Games do not offer ranking points (London did), Isner is not particularly interested in the competition.