“You get confidence from winning this many matches, but you have to take things match by match,” said Mertens after winning her 12th match in a row.

Kvitova jumped to a 3-0 lead in the first set before dropping five straight games and hitting five doubles faults and 24 unforced errors to find herself a set down.

Interesting starts were dealt to Ostapenko vs. Irina-Camelia Begu (winner to face Maria Sharapova), Wozniacki vs. Daria Gavrilova, and Vandeweghe vs. Kristina Mladenovic.

Tough starts for (1) Mertens vs. Siegemund 2nd rd., (6) Diyas vs. the French Open finalist Errani, and (3) Martic vs. the crafty Flipkens…

Two Top 10 players in the J&T Banka Prague Open field are led by former No. 1 Karolina Pliskova, who is coming off reaching the final at Stuttgart, and in Prague will open against her twin sister Kristyna.

An impressive eight of the Top 10 in Stuttgart, where the Top 4 seeds receive opening-round byes…Five women who have sat at No. 1 in the field…

Interesting starts for (1) Woz 2nd rd. vs. the Errani/Flipkens winner, the struggling (3) Radwanska vs. the riser Vekic, and the back-from-injury (2) Kuznetsova vs. Wang who she has struggled against in past encounters…

Tough starts for the struggling (1) Mladenovic vs. last year’s breakout player Siegemund, (9) Van Uytvanck vs. Dodin who she has lost to (winner to face Giorgi), and struggling comeback player (5) Kuznetsova vs. the powerful Barthel…

“It’s such a special tournament for me, winning here for the second time — this is just an unbelievable feeling for me to be here,” Tsurenko said afterwards. “It was amazing…It was almost three hours, we both were nervy and we were still fighting to the end.”

It was Svitolina’s second title of the year after Brisbane last month. She improved to an impressive 11-2 in career championship matches.

Kvitova looked spent from the beginning of the match, going down 0-5 before getting a game on the board.

Wozniacki looking at Sharapova in her second match…

“I am playing amazing tennis again and feeling just great,” Kerber said following the final. “It feels very good to win my first title in my first tournament this year. I have had a great week and the final was not easy against Ash but I was able to play my game in important moments. I feel like I am getting closer to my 2016 level.”

Potential tough starts for the floundering (9) Radwanska vs. Rybarikova (winner to face the Gavrilova-Goerges victor), (7) Cibulkova vs. Stosur, (12) Kerber vs. Garcia, (15) Sevastova vs. Makarova, and (2) Halep vs. the Riske-Kasatkina winner…

“I kept my first relationship secret from everyone for two years before the situation got untenable. It was horrible to lie,” she told Sweden’s SVT TV.