Kvitova top ranking would be ‘nice’ 


Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova insisted yesterday in Melbourne that becoming world number one has never been one of her dreams, although she did concede reaching the pinnacle of the sport would be “nice”.
The tall, left-handed Czech was the break-out women’s player of 2011, winning her first slam and jumping from a world ranking of 34 at the start of the year to number two.
The 21-year-old opened 2011 by winning the Brisbane International on her way to claiming six titles, including Wimbledon. She was also part of the Czech team that won the Fed Cup for the first since Czechoslovakia won in 1988.
Kvitova had a golden chance to overtake reigning world number one Caroline Wozniacki at last week’s Sydney International until her loss to China’s Li Na in the semi-finals.
However, she is only 295 points behind the Dane and can move to number one if she has a good run at the Australian Open, starting today, and Wozniacki, a semi-finalist in 2011, fails to reach the final four this year.
Belarus’s Victoria Azarenka is also within reach of the top ranking while Russia’s Maria Sharapova, Samantha Stosur and Li Na also have an outside chance of reaching number one.
“If maybe I can be number one, it will be very nice too, of course,” Kvitova said.
Chinese fifth seed Li Na also opens her campaign today against Kazakhstan’s Ksenia Pervak and has a relatively smooth path until the fourth round, where she faces a possible 2011 final rematch against Clijsters.