The Czech Republic have advanced to the Fed Cup semi-finals after two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova beat Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic 6-2 6-4.
Kvitova’s victory gave the Czechs an insurmountable 3-0 lead in the first-round match and secured a 10th straight appearance in the last four. They will face Germany in the April semi-finals.
The 27-year-old Kvitova, who triumphed at the All England club in 2011 and 2014, secured the win against Bencic on her first match point.
“It was better today than yesterday, when I played in the Fed Cup again after such a long time away and needed time to get used to it,” she said. “It was a good game from both of us but I wasn’t so nervous as yesterday.”
The big-hitting Czech player put her opponent under pressure with aggressive strokes on the indoor hard court at Prague’s O2 Arena, breaking serve twice in the opening set.
Kvitova, who hit a total of 10 aces, then got the decisive break for a 4-3 lead in the second set after Bencic sent a forehand long.
It was a memorable return to the Fed Cup for Kvitova after she was injured in a knife attack at her home in December 2016.
Kvitova, who won the St. Petersburg Open in Russia earlier this month, was a member of the Czech team that won five of the last seven Fed Cups.
Karolina Pliskova, the Czech No. 1, missed the first-round match against the Swiss because of illness.
In Minsk, Tatjana Maria won two points in her first Fed Cup tie in seven years and led Germany past 2017 finalists Belarus and into the semi-finals.
Germany met Belarus for the first time without their three leading singles players. But Maria earned her first singles win since 2007 when she won the first reverse singles against Vera Lapko 6-4 5-7 6-0. The 19-year-old Lapko made her Fed Cup debut in place of team No. 1 Aliaksandra Sasnovich, who lost her singles on Saturday.
Aryna Sabalenka then tied the match 2-2 by beating German newcomer Antonia Lottner 6-3 5-7 6-2. But straight after that two-hour match, Sabalenka returned for the deciding doubles without regular partner Sasnovich.
Sabalenka combined with Lidziya Marozava for the first time, and they faced Maria and Anna-Lena Groenefeld, who hadn’t played Fed Cup doubles since 2011 but had a 3-2 record.
The Belarusians committed 69 unforced errors as the Germans edged them 6-7 (7-4) 7-5 6-4.