The horrifying ordeal that brought Kvitova to tears after beating Barty
Petra Kvitova never thought she’d be able to play tennis again, let alone make another grand slam semi-final.
Tennis’s comeback queen crushed Ash Barty’s dreams with a ruthless quarter-final defeat on Tuesday night.
Barely two years after being told she’d likely never play again after having her left hand shredded in a vicious stabbing, Kvitova couldn’t hold back the tears.
After Jim Courier asked if she ever lost belief that she’d be back, Kvitova broke down.
“I didn’t imagine I’d be back here on this stage,” she said. “It’s great.”
Kvitova watched the Australian Open from a distance two years ago, a month after she was attacked in a violent home invasion.
Then she lost in the first round last year, and conceded she hadn’t returned to a standard that earned her two Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon.
Until now, that is.
So she knew the question was coming, perhaps overdue.
Still, after her 6-1, 6-4 win over Barty, the question reduced her to tears.
She had just qualified for her first major semi-final since her run to the 2014 Wimbledon title. There was barely a dry eye in the arena.
As she paused to take in a breath and wipe away tears, the encouragement and cheers from the crowd intensified and reached a crescendo after almost 20 seconds to allow Kvitova to respond to Courier’s question.
Later she explained the tears were ”a mix of emotions of everything I’ve been through.”
”Sometimes I’m not really recognising anything from the past,” she said. ”But when Jim asked that, it wasn’t really easy for me to kind of see myself being in a semi-final after everything.”
Since her return to the majors at the French Open in 2017, she has had two first-round exits, two second-round losses, two in the third. The highlight was a run to the 2017 US Open quarter-finals.
Now she’s on a 10-match winning run, having also beaten Barty for the title in Sydney in the week leading up to the Australian Open, and feeling like she’s back in the big time.
”For sure. I’m calling it my ‘second career.’ So it’s the first semi-final of the ‘second career,”’ Kvitova said. ”But, yeah, it took me a while, for sure. I never really played so well on the Grand Slams, so I’m happy this time it’s different. I’m really enjoying it.”
And she really is. Her five wins have been in straight sets in an average time of about 1 hour, 6 minutes.
The difference is fewer nerves, more job satisfaction and more freedom.
”I’m seeing life a little bit differently compared with before. I know it’s just the sport, it’s just the tennis,” she said. ”Always when you’re doing something, you want to do best. Of course, losing, it hurts a lot because you are doing everything for it.
”On the other hand … I’m always looking back and see what I achieved from the time (before the violent attack). It’s always both sides. But in the end, always the life wins.”
with agencies
