She won Wimbledon, twice, and was tipped for the top – until an intruder with a knife threatened to end Petra Kvitová’s tennis career. So why does she feel lucky?
When Petra Kvitová received her trophy after the final of the Australian Open this January, the crowd roared and roared. Anybody who had not watched the match would assume she had won. In fact, she had just been beaten by 21-year-old Naomi Osaka. But this moment was perhaps the two-time Wimbledon champion’s greatest achievement.
Two years earlier, the 29-year-old Czech had been attacked by an intruder with a knife in her apartment in Prostejov. She fought him off, but suffered career-threatening injuries to her left hand – her playing hand. This was her first grand slam final since the attack. Accepting the runner-up plate, she tearfully thanked her team, saying: “You stuck with me when we didn’t know if I would even be able to hold a racket again.”
Written by Simon Hattenstone
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jun/22/petra-kvitova-tennis-knife-attack-wimbledon-simon-hattenstone under the title “
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