With no Serena Williams and no Maria Sharapova, the door was wide open for a new champion. Or was it?
No sooner had it started than twice Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova was heralded as “the fairytale comeback of the year” and a favourite. It proved too much too soon for the Czech player, who’d only just returned last month after her horrendous ordeal in December, when her hand was badly damaged by a knife-wielding intruder.
