On a cold Paris night, tennis player Petra Kvitová is in trouble. Roland Garros didn’t seem to be enjoying playing on the field. The health problems he has faced over the past year are also to blame, but the two-time Wimbledon winner still enjoys tennis and believes that joy will return on the popular grass court.
The former world number two lost in Paris to Daria Saville of Australia in the second round, and her form has not looked happy, save for two games. But inside the Philipp Chatrier Stadium, he assured that he still enjoys tennis. “On its own. Either you damage it yourself or you win yourself. And also find a way to beat your opponent, even if it doesn’t work. I enjoyed the game itself,” said Kvitová.
The winner of the 28 tournaments signed last year and his health problems. “Do you have time?” Kvitova asked reporters because she had to calculate what she had been through.
His troubles started last year in Paris, where he sprained his ankle and had to withdraw before the second round. “It was wrong here last year,” he said. Although he advanced to the semifinals on grass in Bad Homburg, he lost in the first round at his beloved Wimbledon.
In August, he had coronavirus and the illness had been affecting him for longer than known. “It goes into my lungs and with my asthma, a lot of the results don’t go well. I’m short of breath, I can’t breathe well, I need to rest longer and everything. Maybe better, but three or four. I been recovering for months,” he said.
He finished training three weeks before the season, but he didn’t say much. And in the end, he started to feel his wrist. In Adelaide after the first duel his hand swelled, then again in Sydney and at the Australian Open he fell in the first round. “I had inflammation there, so it was terrible.”
He played without restrictions for a while, but in Doha the wrist rang again. The ball can also be blamed. “We have dunes there, which are very heavy. And my hand has a lot of things behind it, has been injured and operated on many times, so you can expect it to sound,” Kvitová said.
He played a good tournament in Miami, from where he went to green clay in Charleston. “And there I stretched my crotch on one slide. It was very different,” she said. He can’t train too much because of his injury, and it shows on the pitch. They don’t really believe it. “I lack healthy confidence, because I haven’t recorded so many matches. I can train as much as I want, but matches are different from training points.”
He admits, sometimes he finds it very difficult to find motivation. But now comes his favorite time of year. The season begins in the grass. “The motivation is clear,” he smiled.
No points will be awarded at this year’s Wimbledon. The ATP and WTA thus decided in response to tournament organizers All England Club expelling Russian and Belarusian players for the invasion of Ukraine. Japan’s Naomi Osaka said she didn’t know if she would go to Wimbledon because she felt it would be like an exhibition. This was an incomprehensible reaction for Kvitová.
“The number one player in the world and having four grand slams would say this. But I don’t understand a lot of touring players. I don’t even want to interfere, because sometimes it’s like hell,” said Kvitova. “Even if I didn’t win Wimbledon twice, it was Wimbledon, it wouldn’t be an exhibition. There would be no points. It’s still a tennis sanctuary.”
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