Petra Kvitova got the defence of her Wimbledon title off to a solid start with a 6-4 6-4 victory over Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan.

The Czech had to come from a break down to take the opening set on Court 15, winning six straight games on the way to a 6-4 6-4 success against the world number 96.

She dropped her opening service game and Amanmuradova’s consistent delivery kept her ahead for a while.

But then Kvitova’s extra class began to tell, and breaks in the seventh and ninth games turned the set around in the fourth seed’s favour.

Kvitova asserted herself with a further break of Amanmuradova’s serve in the opening game of the second set, and held on her own to win that sixth game in a row.

At six foot, Kvitova is among the taller players in the women’s game, but remarkably Amanmuradova has a height advantage of three inches over her.

She has never been able to make that count at Wimbledon though, losing in the first round now in all five of her appearances, having made her debut in 2008.

A rain delay, lasting half an hour, forced the players to take shelter and the court covers to go on.
But Kvitova returned to play a love service game and clinch a second-round tussle against either Britain’s Elena Baltacha or Italian Karin Knapp.

“It’s unbelievable to come back as defending champion,” said the Czech. “I was nervous at the start. On grass you never know what to expect from me.”

Defending champion Novak Djokovic, destroyed another former world No.1 Spain’s Juan Carlos Ferrero on a sun-kissed centre court. Djokovic raced to a 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 win in 98 minutes, barely breaking a sweat.