Kvitova beats odds coming back from knife attack
PARIS— Five months after a home invader’s knife sliced into her left hand, Petra Kvitova will return to competitive tennis at the French Open, a last-minute decision to make her comeback earlier than expected.
“Not many people believe that I can play tennis again,” Kvitova said Friday in a news conference at Roland Garros. “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 alive, and I have all my fingers, I can play tennis and I can be here and be in the draw.”
Dr. Radek Kebrle, Kvitova’s surgeon, said that a “realistic timeline” had Kvitova returning six months after the attack and that her return is one month earlier than anticipated under ideal circumstances.
The 27-year-old Kvitova was attacked in her home in Prostejov, Czech Republic, on the morning of Dec. 20.
She suffered deep cuts to all five fingers on her left hand, her dominant hand in tennis.
“The chances of Petra’s hand healing well enough for her to be able to play tennis again were very low for multiple reasons,” Kebrle said in a statement provided by Kvitova’s spokeswoman, Katie Spellman.
Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion, suffered the injuries as she pulled the knife blade away from her throat; two fingers suffered nerve damage. She underwent surgery hours after the attack and began rehabilitative therapy two days later, with a focus on keeping her fingers mobile to prevent them from becoming stiff.
“Every kind of small millimetre made me happy,” said Kvitova, who added that she still had not regained a full range of motion with her fingers.
She has recovered from a stress fracture in her foot that she suffered before the attack.
After eight weeks of keeping her hand in a protective splint, Kvitova slowly eased into gripping objects and then tried less demanding sports like table tennis and badminton, playing with her non-dominant right hand.
Four weeks after that, she began holding atennis racket, and eventually she hit soft balls. She started hitting only her twohanded backhands, then eased into hitting forehands and serves.
“Of course, the hand doesn’t have that power and the strength yet, but I’m working on it,” she said. “Hopefully, one day will be everything perfect. But we never know, still.”
A Women’s Tennis Association representative said before the news conference that Kvitova would not be able to discuss the attack itself because of the continuing police investigation. Her assailant has not yet been captured.
Kvitova said that she struggled to sleep in the nights after the attack and that she watched strangers more carefully. But she also kept her mind busy by enrolling in a communications and social media course at Jan Amos Komensky University in Prague during her time off. While unable to compete, she said, watching tennis on television was emotional for her.
“I didn’t really feel great,” Kvitova said. “I felt like the tennis was taken away from me, and it wasn’t my decision. Suddenly I couldn’t do what I love. So I’m happy that I can be here and enjoy the tennis.”
Though her expectations are low, Kvitova was dealt a favourable first-round opponent: the Danish-American Julia Boserup, who has never played at the French Open. Boserup, ranked 86th, lost in the first round of qualifying at clay events in Madrid and Rome, and in the first round of the main draw of Strasbourg this week, 6-1, 6-0, to Monica Puig.
Kvitova, who has a protected ranking and is seeded 15th, is in the top eighth of the women’s singles draw alongside topseeded Angelique Kerber, who has struggled this season, particularly on clay, her least favourite surface. Kerber has a daunting first opponent: 40th-ranked Ekaterina Makarova, a two-time Grand Slam semifinalist.
The defending champion, Garbiñe Muguruza, opens against the 2010 champion Francesca Schiavone.
Third-seeded Simona Halep, considered by most to be a favourite in an open women’s field, is still recovering from an ankle injury she suffered in the first set of her loss in the Italian Open final Sunday. When she arrived in Paris, she said she was only “50-50” on competing at Roland Garros.
“Of course I’m sad; I don’t want to hide that,” Halep said of her disappointment.