Two Top 10 players made very short work of their second-round matches at Wimbledon on Friday.
No.6 seed Ons Jabeur, last year’s Wimbledon runner-up, sped past qualifier Bai Zhuoxuan 6-1, 6-1 on No.1 Court. In their first meeting, Jabeur took just 45 minutes to collect the win.
Wimbledon: Scores | Draws | Order of play
And No.9 seed Petra Kvitova, Wimbledon champion in 2011 and 2014, made her way into the third round of the event for the ninth time with a 6-2, 6-2 defeat of Aliaksandra Sasnovich in 74 minutes.
If Jabeur and Kvitova both win their third-round matches on Saturday, they would face off in a star-studded Round of 16 clash.
Jabeur zips through: In the final second-round match of the day, Jabeur was dominant against 191st-ranked Bai, who was playing in her first Grand Slam main draw. Jabeur won 87 percent of her first-serve points, and hit 15 winners (including six aces) to Bai’s three.
“I think it was a good match for me,” Jabeur said in her post-match press conference. “I tried to stick to the plan, just be able to be ready for tomorrow.”
Jabeur was in a spot of trouble early on serve at 2-0 in the first set, but her delivery started firing on all cylinders at that point, and she erased two break points in that game. Jabeur never faced another break point all day.
Making her 25th Grand Slam appearance, Jabeur is into the third round of Wimbledon for the third straight year. In addition to last year’s final, she also reached the quarterfinals in 2021.
Jabeur will next take on 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu in a marquee third-round match on Centre Court on Saturday. Jabeur won their only prior meeting, at Montreal in 2021.
Andreescu reignites 2019 magic in second-round Wimbledon win
“[Andreescu] can be aggressive, she can change up the rhythm,” Jabeur said, looking ahead to the clash. “I’m just going to try to take time from her. We can have a similar game because I know she likes to do some dropshots, she likes to slice a bit. We actually have practiced together, so it’s a good thing for me, I guess.”
Kvitova on a roll: Earlier on Friday, two-time champion Kvitova exacted a measure of revenge with the result against Sasnovich.
Five years ago, Kvitova had come into Wimbledon 2018 with a grass-court title in Birmingham under her belt. But as one of the favorites to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish that year, the Czech crashed out to Sasnovich 6-4, 4-6, 6-0 in the first round.