Five months after attack, Kvitova returns to tennis court on her terms
The player considered the most unlikely to compete at this year’s French Open had to be Petra Kvitova, who suffered serious left hand wounds when fighting off a knife-wielding intruder at her Prostejov, Czech Republic, home just days before Christmas.
But just five months after the Dec. 20 attack — she had surgery later that day — the 15th-seeded southpaw is in Paris, racket in hand, and ready to face American Julia Boserup in the first round.
Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion, operates with an optimistic outlook on life. Despite her surgeon, Radek Kebrie, warning her after the 3-hour, 45-minute procedure that her playing days could be over, she believed she would be back on the court.
Even with the operation being deemed a success and hand therapy results offering a promising picture, everyone proceeded with caution. The earliest timeline for her return was supposed to be six months. But that didn’t keep Kvitova from signing up for the French Open, five months from the incident.
“Not many people believe that I can play tennis again,” said Kvitova, 27, smiling as her voice cracked. “So I’m happy that I can play. I actually already won my biggest fight. I’m happy that I like challenges. That was one of the biggest, of course. So I stayed in life and I have all my fingers.
“I felt like the tennis was taken away from me, and it wasn’t my decision. Suddenly I couldn’t do what I love. I see life a little bit from (a) different angle (now).”
Kvitova is receiving more than a few double takes at Roland Garros. Many players were surprised to hear she was on site.
“She’s in the draw?” seventh seed Johanna Konta said. “I didn’t know. Actually, that’s really good news. Oh, that’s so nice.”
All five of Kvitova’s fingers were injured, but it was a clean cut and only two fingers suffered digital nerve damage.
Kvitova’s hand was in a splint for eight weeks, but she started doing hand rehabilitation two days after the surgery. By the end of February, she was playing table tennis and badminton and doing shadow tennis swings. At 12 weeks, she was cleared to take up a tennis racket slowly, and by the beginning of May, she was ensconced at her Monte Carlo home and practicing on the clay courts.
Kvitova said the terrifying incident did set her nerves on edge, but she has coped with help from loved ones. She can’t discuss the incident because of the police investigation, and to date, there has been no arrest.
“I didn’t sleep well the days after, but I wasn’t really staying alone,” she said. “I have been always with my family or with my coaches or with friends. I don’t really have nightmares. From the beginning I was feeling really weird when I went in the city or somewhere, I was always staring to the guys and looking if there are no strangers there. But with time, it’s better. Of course, I’m more actively watching the people around me.”
Since therapy wasn’t going to fill all the hours of the day during her recuperation, Kvitova enrolled at the University of Jan Amos Komensky, where she is studying communications and social media. “Maybe I will be one of you, then, someday,” she joked to journalists.
Viewing her return as a second chance to play tennis, she’s making a big deal of it. Her family — parents Jiri and Pavla and brothers Jiri and Libor — will be sitting courtside watching her first match back.
“It was a last-minute decision,” she said of playing in Paris. “I have to start somewhere. I know it’s a Grand Slam, but it’s good practice. For me right now, it’s not like a Grand Slam. When I step on the court, it will be something really different compared to anything.”