‘Fighting the flashbacks from knife attack was so tough on my return to the court’
Petra Kvitova’s enforced lay-off has made her only hungrier for success, she explains to Simon Briggs
Tennis has been blessed with some extraordinary comeback stories of late, including Roger Federer’s straightout-of-the-box success at January’s Australian Open. But Petra Kvitova has just upped the ante.
On Dec 21, Kvitova was attacked by a burglar who claimed to be a meter-reader. Cornering her in the bathroom of her flat in Prostejov, in the Czech Republic, the intruder held a knife up to her throat. She fended him off, but only at the cost of deep cuts to her racket hand. Now, just over six months later, Kvitova has won a grandslam match, lifted a title in Birmingham, and installed herself as the early favourite for Wimbledon. Yet she admits that, even in the heat of battle, flashbacks continue to afflict her.
“It was especially difficult during the first round [of the French Open],” said Kvitova. “Through the match, during the changeovers sometimes, the thoughts from the past were there, just for a quick while. But then I started to think about the tennis again. It was on and off.”
Was she thinking back to the attack itself? “Yes – in December and then how the long way [back] was tough. In the second match it wasn’t as bad but it was still there. But luckily in Birmingham, everything was done. I got a little bit emotional in the final service game of the final, but it’s OK.”
When the news filtered through to her peers, just before Christmas, everyone felt an echo of her pain.
Known for her groundedness and approachability, Kvitova is one of the most popular characters on tour.
After her surgeon had completed a four-hour operation to reattach the tendons in her fingers, he suggested that her chances of resuming her career were “very low”. Yet Kvitova was determined to prove him wrong, and she had the support of the locker room to drive her on.
“I think it is very nice that people like Simona [Halep] or Angie [Kerber] or Aga [Radwanska] texted me,” she said, when asked about the avalanche of messages she received during the Australian Open. “I got new phone numbers as well. I look at the girls a little bit differently because many of them surprised me in the way they showed how much they cared about me, how happy they are that I’m back. I think these kind of stories are putting us together, that we are sticking more together than before. And that actually makes me very happy.”
Soon after the injury, she received an approach from the BBC inviting her to be part of their commentary team at Wimbledon. She turned it down, saying that “If I am not playing I will probably not
‘There was the thought in my mind that maybe I would never play again’
come just to watch”. Instead, she enrolled on a communications-andsocial-media course at Prague University. “There was the thought in my mind that maybe I would never play again,” Kvitova added, “so I would need to have something else to do in my life. I’m not the sort who would want to just lie on the sofa watching TV. It was also about keeping my mind busy so I wouldn’t be thinking about my hand, about tennis, about whether I was going to come back or not.”
In her previous incarnation, Kvitova was hardly the most singleminded of tennis players. If her dedication seemed to ebb and flow with the tides, that might have reflected her impatience with the monomania of professional sport. But now, after six months of enforced rest, she has returned with a new intensity about her.
Asked how it felt to imagine life without professional tennis, she replied: “It was difficult because it was something I hadn’t decided. If I sit down with myself and say ‘OK, that’s enough’ then that’s a different story. But suddenly I couldn’t play – and it wasn’t my decision. I was always a player who has ups and downs. I can’t say I lost the motivation, but I did just lose the passion for the sport.”
Is that less likely to happen now, after all the time that has been lost? Has Kvitova become hungrier for success? “I think so. That is what I found out during the time off as well. It was very difficult to sit on the sofa and watch the Australian Open on the TV with the hand in the splint and that they were playing and I can’t. It wasn’t a nice feeling.” As she prepares for her tilt at a third Wimbledon title, Kvitova’s final thought ought to worry her rivals. “Maybe that makes me stronger as well.”