Future is uncertain for Kvitova after ‘severe’ hand injuries in knife attack
TWO-TIME Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova is facing a nervous wait to see if she fully recovers after suffering “severe” injuries to her racquet hand in an attack by a man with a knife in her apartment in Prostejov, Czech Republic, on Tuesday morning.
The attack was vicious – Kvitova’s agents confirmed an account of the struggle, first reported by the BBC, in which an unknown assailant entered her apartment to rob it under the guise of checking a utility meter.
A struggle in a bathroom led to a knife against Kvitova’s throat. She was able to fight free, but not before sustaining deep lacerations to the fingers of her left hand.
“In my attempt to defend myself, I was badly injured on my left hand,” Kvitova wrote in a statement posted to her Facebook page hours after the assault. “I am shaken, but fortunate to be alive.
“The injury is severe and I will need to see specialists, but if you know anything about me, I am strong and I will fight this.”
Her assailant, described by the Prostejov police as a man in his mid30s, escaped from the scene and has not been apprehended.
Karel Tejka l, a spokesman for the Czech Fed Cup team, characterized the incident as “a random criminal act”.
“The end of her career did not even cross her mind,” Tejkal said in an interview with Czech television. “She kept saying: ‘Let them put me together fast, no matter if it takes months or years.’ She is looking forward to training again.”
Damage to her left hand could affect her future in tennis – Kvitova plays left-handed and uses a twohanded backhand. She was trans- ported to a hospital in Brno, the country’s second largest city, roughly 60 kilometres away, where Kvitova had been scheduled to appear at a children’s charity event on Tuesday.
Return timetable not yet known
After three hours and 45 minutes, doctors had repaired tendons in all five digits of her left hand as well as two nerves, Kvitova’s spokeswoman, Katie Spellman, said in a statement.
“Considering the extent of the damage, the surgery went very well,” Spellman said.
Kvitova will wear a cast for six to eight weeks, and will be unable to bear weight for three months.
A timetable for any possible return to the sport is not yet known.
Dr Michael W Kessler, the chief of hand and elbow surgery at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, said the numbness after sustaining nerve injuries could prove particularly disruptive to playing tennis again.
“Hitting a forehand or a backhand is really challenging with tendon injuries, but we also always talk about touch in tennis to hit a drop shot or something like that,” said Kessler, who did not know the specifics of Kvitova’s injury.
“A tennis racquet is the extension of someone’s arm, so not having the feedback from the fingertips to the same level of specificity as before can also be challenging.”
Kvitova had been scheduled to begin her 2017 season at the Hop- man Cup in Perth, Australia, but had pulled out earlier on Tuesday with an existing stress fracture in her right foot. The Australian Open, the year’s first Grand Slam event, begins on January 16.
Kvitova, 26, reached her careerhigh ranking of No2 in 2011, t he year of her first Wimbledon tit le. She beat Maria Sharapova in st ra ight sets in the final with a display of thunderous power from her swooping ser ve and percussive forehand.
Kvitova was the first Czech to win a Grand Slam singles title since Jana Novotna won Wimbledon in 1998.
Kvitova routed Eugenie Bouchard for her second Wimbledon title in 2014.
After falling out of the top 10 this year, she found success in the second half of the year, winning a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics, WTA titles in the Chinese cities of Wuhan and Zhuhai, and a fifth Fed Cup title with her Czech teammates in November.
She finished the year ranked 11th. Last week, she won the WTA’s sportsmanship award for the fifth time in six years.
‘It will not be easy’
Elite women’s tennis players have been subjected to violent attacks before, often with career-altering results. In 1993, top-ranked Monica Seles was stabbed during a match in Hamburg and did not return to the sport for more than two years.
When she did, her dominance subsided, and she won only one more Grand Slam title to add to her previous eight.
In 2007, sixth-ranked Anna Chakvetadze and her family were assaulted during a home invasion in Moscow. Chakvetadze, who had made the semifinals of the US Open three months before, was unable to replicate that success, and she retired in 2013 at the age of 26.
Chakvetadze said on Tuesday that she was “very upset” when she heard Kvitova had been attacked, emphasising that mental recovery from such an attack can be more difficult than the physical aspects.
“Especially when you got badly injured, you always ask yourself: ‘Why did it happen?’” Chakvetadze said.
“Could I do something different in that situation? I got an arm nerve injury after they tied it up with TV cable, and it took one month to feel my arm again.
“With a knife, it’s even worse. I hope she will recover as soon as possible, mentally and physically, but it will not be easy.”