Roberta Vinci of Italy returns a ball during the third round match against Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic at 2015 WTA Wuhan Open Tennis Tournament in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, on Sept. 30, 2015. Roberta Vinci won 2-0. (Xinhua/Cheng Min)
WUHAN, China, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Roberta Vinci's glorious finale to the 2015 season continued on Wednesday when she tripped up defending champion Petra Kvitova in the third round of the Wuhan Open.
Almost three weeks to the day that Vinci stunned the sporting world with her sensational upset of Serena Williams in New York, she produced another cerebral display to overcome Kvitova 7-6(3), 6-2.
"Against Petra it's always tough to play, she's an incredible player, she won last year here, but I played a really good match," Vinci said. "She played so well the first few games so I tried not to think about this and focus."
The early exchanges suggested that she would struggle to replicate her US Open heroics, Kvitova rattling off winner after winner to race into a 4-0 lead with little more than quarter of an hour on the clock.
However, the Czech was unable to sustain this blistering start, a couple of loose points allowing Vinci to snatch a game and with it the momentum.
In the blink of an eye she was level and once into the tie-break it was all Vinci. At 4-3, she got the mini break, trapping Kvitova on the baseline with a smart return. Two errors later and the set was hers.
With the whiff of an upset in the air, Vinci went in for the kill, carving a backhand down the line to get her nose in front before breaking once more to book her quarterfinal spot.
There she will face the winner of the all-WTA rising stars encounter between Karolina Pliskova and Elina Svitolina.
