Tears after fears for winner Petra
TOP SEED Angelique Kerber was the surprise exit on the opening day of the French Open but it was the tournament’s unexpected entrant who had the crowd on its feet at Roland Garros.
In December, an intruder broke into Petra Kvitova’s house and held a knife to her throat. In the ensuing scuffle, the world No11’s left hand was slashed, leavi ng her unable to move her fingers and fearing for her career.
Thanks to four hours of surgery on the tendons of all four fingers and thumb, together with two vital nerves, doctors said she might be able to play again after six months’ intense rehabilitation.
Consequently, the two-time Wimbledon champion initially pencilled in the All England Championships for her return when she was finally able to hit a ball again in March.
However, after full training went better than expected when she resumed this month, Kvitova decided to target the French Open for some extra court time – and duly rolled over American world No 86 Julia Boserup 6-3, 6-2 in just 74 minutes.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she celebrated in front of her parents Jiri and Pavla, who were stood together with brothers Jiri and Libor in the stands on Roland Garros’s main Court Philippe Chatrier.
They bore T-shirts saying, “courage, belief, pojd!” – the Czech word for “come on!”
“Thank you for everything, you helped me through this difficult time,” an emotional Kvitova said.
“I promised my doctor, who gave me the green light, if I feel pain in my hand during the match or in practice, I’m stopping immediately. But I was happy I didn’t have any pain.
“It wasn’t an easy decision to be here and play. I didn’t know how I will be ready. But I think for all the staff, for the media, for seeing the opponents, friends and people around, it’s just really important to be here and to have done everything I need to do to be more relaxed inside and more at peace for the coming tournaments.”
Ekaterina Makarova of Russia claimed her 10th top-10 scalp in a Grand Slam with the 6-2, 6-2 shock win over Kerber.
German Kerber said: “Of course, if you’re losing it’s always tough to enjoy the game. I know in the last years I had up and downs and right now I’m in the down feeling.
“I’m still enjoying playing and trying to learn from this moment. It’s a tough situation for the future and a bit painful. But I can’t start changing now.” With Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova all missing for various reasons, the women’s competition already looked wide open.
Which made eyebrows rise even higher when Venus Williams fell victim to the first break of her game against China’s world No 50 Qiang Wang.
Normal service appeared to have been resumed, however, when the seven-time Grand Slam winner broke quickly back and went on to win the first set.
But Williams again fell behind in the second set before Wang finally cracked as she served to level. In the end a comfortable second-set tie-break was enough for the No10 seed to progress with a 6-4, 7-6 victory.