Petra Kvitova after a complicated injury in her hand saw the glass half full than empty and has a new-found appreciation for life that she took into the 2018 tennis season extending into 2019.
Petra Kvitova said “I wanted to be back at my greatest level as I played before, I knew it would be very, very difficult because my hand, it’s not 100 percent and never will be. I’m just trying to take maximum from the minimum.”
Petra Kvitová born 8 March 1990 is a Czech professional tennis player, Known for her powerful left-handed groundstrokes, Petra Kvitová’s father Jiří introduced her to tennis. She turned professional in 2006 and has won 26 career singles titles, two of which are Grand Slam titles (the Wimbledon in 2011 and in 2014).
She has a career-high ranking of world No. 2, in January 2019; Kvitová was the highest-ranked Czech player and the second highest-ranked left-handed player, behind Angelique Kerber.
After winning a bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics and Fed Cup defense, during the offseason going into 2017, she had her left playing hand seriously injured from a brutal knife attack by a burglar in her home town in the Czech Republic.
Against the belief of Medical and Tennis experts that two-times Wimbledon champion would never resume her career, as Kvitova had lasting nerve damage and could not feel two of her fingers to her playing hand, that familiar sensation of holding a racket firmly in her hand as she had done since she was four years old, had disappeared almost overnight.
But, she worked tirelessly for months on rehabilitation programmes with draining physiotherapy sessions.
Five months after Kvitova returned to competitive action in 2017 and secured a fairytale comeback when she won a 20th career title at Birmingham’s Aegon Classic.
The former world No. 2 reached the Australian Open and Wimbledon first round and US Open third round won 5 WTA titles ending 2018 ranked world No. 7, her first top 10 finish since 2015.
In January 2019, Petra Kvitova had happy tears as she advanced to her first grand slam final after she was told she would likely never play tennis again.
Petra Kvitova might not have completed the fairytale comeback by winning the trophy but she says “… I think I already won two years ago. So for me, it’s amazing.
I think I still don’t really realize that I played the final. I’ve been through many, many things, not really great ones. I didn’t know if I [was] going to hold the racket again. I’m holding it, so that’s good.”
