Write Kvitova off at our peril. The Czech is the WTA ace queen, but can she translate her form into a third Grand Slam win?
Friday 25 May 2018 17:09, UK
Even among sport's most compelling narratives, you'd be hard pressed to find a comeback quite as moving, impressive, and delightedly-received as Petra Kvitova's.
In the process of fighting off a knife-wielding assailant in her own home in December 2016, employing the courage which makes her one of the game's most formidably aggressive players, the two-time Wimbledon Champion suffered damage to tendons in each of the fingers of her playing hand.
That fearsome left hand, behind two of the most one-sided finals ever staged upon the grass of Wimbledon (Eugenie Bouchard and Maria Sharapova swatted aside for the total loss of just ten games), underwent four hours of emergency surgery - a procedure serious enough to warrant warnings that the Czech might never play again.
The psychological and physical barriers seemed likely to prove insurmountable, but the tennis world - in which Kvitova is one of the game's darlings, winning the Karen Krantzcke Sportsmanship Award six times in the past seven years - held its breath in hope of a fairytale comeback.
Her coach, Jiri Vanek, appointed just a few weeks before the attack, worked closely with the Czech to rehabilitate in such a way that her natural game wouldn't be affected: player and coach were keen to keep both her grip and racket as they had always been, so that learning a new style of tennis wasn't yet another hurdle to overcome.
Four months later, and Kvitova exited the French Open in straight sets in the second round. No one will remember that loss, for her victory in the first - her converted match point accompanied by a few tears (from Kvitova and spectators alike) - was momentous. 'Congratulations to Petra Kvitova for so much more than winning a tennis match today,' tweeted her opponent, American Julia Boserup.
Kvitova was back: scarred, lacking feeling in two of her fingers, and unable to grip her racket as strongly as she could pre-attack - but back nonetheless.
Entering the 2018 French Open, she is ranked No 8 in the World; 2018 Champion in St. Petersburg, Qatar, Prague, and Madrid; and swinging more freely than ever.
"I didn't think I could be in the final, winning the trophy back-to-back," said the Czech. "I'm pretty exhausted. I need to pull out from Rome."
Few expected her to stage a comeback, let alone return to the game's pinnacle, and this lack of expectation has been counteracted in her audacious kick serves and early lashing of forehands crosscourt. In a sport of the finest of margins, in which the name forever etched upon a trophy can be decided by a puff of chalk dust, her return despite such a significant impairment is a feat of mental and sporting indomitability.
Kvitova has won her last eleven matches on clay, with a winning record on the red stuff in 2018 of 87 per cent. Although she's reached the semi-finals in Paris before, and her seeding of eight is deceptively low, a win at Roland Garros would be nothing short of miraculous, given the circumstances.
If last year's Champion, Jelena Ostapenko, was a surprise - the unseeded teenager becoming the first Latvian to win a Grand Slam singles title, and the event's youngest winner this millennium - a maiden title in France for Kvitova would be an even greater story.
It's already been an implausibly happy narrative to date, but - if the past 18 months have proven anything - it's that we write Petra Kvitova off at our peril.