One of the many entertaining second round matches to grace the Porsche Grand Prix tournament in Stuttgart is one between the returning Petra Kvitova and Madison Brengle. It marks the first career meeting between the two competitors and sets up for a potentially thrilling match-up on the clay courts in Germany.

Following a self-imposed exile from the WTA tour that lasted a total of six week, Petra Kvitova returned to professional competition in style last weekend, as she won both her singles matches in straight sets to send her nation to the finals of the Fed Cup tournament for the fourth time in five years. After stating that she had lost motivation for a time, she looked great on court and defeated Caroline Garcia 6-4, 6-4, and Kristina Mladenovic 6-3, 6-4 to announce her return in emphatic fashion. She will now move on to her first clay court match-up of the season.

Her first opponent is set to be Madison Brengle, who defeated Italy’s Alberta Brianti in straight sets to secure her spot in the second round of the tournament. The American struck two aces, won 63% of her first service points and saved two break points to secure the 6-4, 6-4 victory in one hour and 14 minutes.

This marks just the first time that Kvitova and Brengle will meet on the WTA tour. Given the significant gap in rankings and experience, it would be difficult for us to assume that anyone other than Kvitova would be the favourite to win the match. However, the Czech is coming off a six-week spell way from the tour but she did look promising with her consecutive straight sets wins to send her nation into the final of the Fed Cup. She will likely continue that momentum over in her first clay court encounter of the season.