Confident Kvitova advances to 3rd round at Eastbourne

EASTBOURNE, England (AP) Petra Kvitova insists her confidence is ''pretty good'' despite recent poor results as she advanced to the third round of the Eastbourne International on Tuesday.

Fifth-seeded Kvitova, who has reached just one semifinal this year, beat Timea Babos of Hungary 6-4, 7-6 (5).

''I'm kind of feeling that I am playing well, even though I lost some of the matches in a couple of months,'' she said, including a second-round defeat in England at Birmingham last week.

The two-time Wimbledon champion broke in the first set to lead 5-4 against Babos but then had to fight off two break points as she closed out the set. In a tense second set, the Czech held four break points to lead 5-4 before Babos took her to a tiebreaker.

''It wasn't easy today,'' said Kvitova. ''She was serving really well.''

Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark also reached the third round by crushing seventh-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2, 6-1, while former top-ranked junior Kristina Mladenovic of France upset fourth-seeded Swiss Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 7-5.

I love grass,'' said Mladenovic. ''I don't have any surface that I don't like.''