Birmingham Classic: Defending champion Petra Kvitova reaches semi-finals; Mihaela Buzarnescu upsets Elina Svitolina

Birmingham: Petra Kvitova, who hopes a successful title defence at the Birmingham Classic will help her bid to win Wimbledon for a third time, moved into the semi-finals with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Germany’s Julia Goerges on Friday. The fourth-seeded Kvitova took an hour and six minutes to dispatch an opponent who reached the top 10 for the first time last month, and is one of three players to have hit 400 aces in a season. [caption id=“attachment_4578711” align=“alignleft” width=“381”] Petra Kvitova celebrates winning her quarter-final match against Julia Goerges. Reuters [/caption] “I was very pleased with everything,” Kvitova said. “I knew how well she can play, even when she is down.” The Czech player’s display underlined an impression that she is performing at a significantly higher level than when she won the Birmingham grasscourt event a year ago, after returning from a serious hand injury inflicted by a burglar. Kvitova, who won Wimbledon in 2011 and 2014, next plays the unseeded Romanian Mihaela Buzarnescu, who defeated Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-2. Buzarnescu dedicated the victory to her family and coaching team, those close to her who believed she could rescue her career after two knee surgeries, and twice being sidelined for more than two years. “Everyone else said, no chance, don’t play, give up. But they said, you can try one more time,” she explained. Buzarnescu, who also beat Svitolina in the French Open three weeks ago, has won more matches (82) than any other player since she recovered from her latest knee operation a year ago. Second seed Svitolina needed an injury timeout at the end of the first set because of a troublesome thumb. Barbora Strycova, the feisty grasscourt expert who ousted Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza on Thursday, was leading 7-5, 3-0 when Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko retired with a painful left hip. The unseeded Strycova next plays Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova, who was the Birmingham champion nine years ago and a Wimbledon semi-finalist last year. Rybarikova, who is also unseeded, swept past Slovenia’s Dalila Jakupovic 6-2, 6-4.