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.”

We meet at the Sparta tennis club in Prague, where she is training for next month’s Wimbledon. This is where the Czech Republic’s top tennis professionals come to practise. In the car park, there is a huge advertising hoarding showing off the players who have learned, or at least refined, their trade here: current women’s world number three Karolína Plíšková, her twin Kristýna (I later see the sisters hitting ferociously at each other), former Wimbledon finalist Tomáš Berdych and, of course, Kvitová.

She has made an astonishing recovery, returning to professional tennis only five months after the attack and winning eight singles titles over the past two years – more than any other woman, rising to be ranked world number two (she is currently at number five). Kvitová missed the recent French Open because of injury, but is determined to be fit for Wimbledon, for which she is currently second favourite behind Serena Williams.

Kvitová is tall and striking, with big, bold, Picasso-esque features – eyes blue as cornflowers, long straight nose, perfect white teeth. She is known as one of the friendliest, most approachable players on the tennis circuit. Today she smiles easily as she tells me how thrilled she is to be back, and how much she is enjoying her game. Yet it does not take long to discover just how huge an impact the attack had, and continues to have, on her life.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest At a press conference in Prague three days after the attack; it took a four-hour operation to repair her severed nerves and lacerated fingers. Photograph: AP

I ask if she feels she has been lucky or unlucky. “I was lucky. Definitely. I was so lucky in an unlucky situation. To be honest, I could have been in the hřbitov.” I look blank. She does a Czech-English translation on her phone and passes it to me. “Hřbitov – cemetery. I could be in the cemetery,” she says. “Yes, definitely.”

Has coming so close to death changed her? “Yes, it’s changed me, for sure. In a good way and a bad way.” Having played professional tennis for a decade, she thinks she had started to take it for granted. “Sometimes when you’re on tour for so many years, you feel flat or unmotivated, without drive.” She talks about how draining the pre-match nerves would be, how exhausting the travelling was, how demanding it was on the body, and how often she’d wish she was at home with her feet up, watching the telly. Then, when after the attack she did find herself at home watching the telly, it didn’t take her long to realise how much she missed her sport – and how privileged she was to play at such a level. “When I sat on the sofa and saw the girls playing tennis, and I wasn’t able to, I just couldn’t watch.”

She says she is now better at putting things in perspective. In the past she would angst about the little things. “I was very stressed, but now I’m more relaxed. I appreciate small things more, like beautiful weather, being with my family and my friends. If there’s a big problem, I do care, but if it’s a small, stupid thing, I’m like, yeah, whatever.”

Kvitová grew up in the remote Moravian-Silesian town of Fulnek, 300km from Prague. Her mother Pavla, who worked for a white goods company, was calm and kind, she says; her father Jiří was an uncompromising maths teacher who demanded the best of his daughter and her two older brothers, both academically and on the tennis court. He took Petra to play every day after school. While her friends went to the pool to relax, she was hitting ball after ball back at her father. It’s not that he was training her to be a professional, she says, it’s just that he was terrified she would become a waster. “He never wanted us to be in the square smoking or taking drugs.” Did she ever tell him to cut her some slack; that she just wanted to hang out with her friends? “Yes, of course. We had many conversations. I wanted to be with my friends so badly, but he was just too tough.”

Her brothers are also talented tennis payers, but Kvitová says they didn’t have the mental stamina to compete at the highest level. They went to university and completed master’s degrees, while Kvitová turned professional once she had finished secondary school. At the age of 21, she won Wimbledon as eighth seed, beating odds-on favourite Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-4 in the final. Did she not find Sharapova’s grunting (ferocious even by her standards that day) off-putting? She laughs. “No. You don’t notice at the time, you’re just focusing on your play and on the ball. But when I’m watching it on TV, I hate it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest At the French Open in 2017, her first competitive match after the attack five months earlier. Photograph: Getty Images

When she was presented with the winner’s plate, she looked bewildered, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she had done. She nods when I mention it. “Exactly,” she says. “I was lost somewhere.”

Kvitová has had an unusual career, both in what she has achieved and what she hasn’t. After that first Wimbledon win, her hero and fellow Czech, nine-times Wimbledon singles champion Martina Navratilova, said she believed Kvitová could get close to her record. But she struggled with the burden of expectation. She continued to win minor trophies and remained in the top 10, but another grand slam title eluded her. “I was only 21 when I won, and suddenly people were saying I was going to win so many more – I wasn’t ready for it. I was like, OK, so now I have to win every match.”

Three years later, in 2014, she did win another slam – again, Wimbledon. The relief was palpable. After playing the winning shot, she fell on her back and bathed in the glory. Kvitová had pulverised the Canadian Eugenie Bouchard 6-3, 6-0 with an astonishing display of power and accuracy, hitting 28 winners and sending Bouchard packing in 55 minutes – one of the fastest Wimbledon finals ever. She says this win meant a lot because it showed she wasn’t a one-hit wonder. “People sometimes say, ‘Yeah, she won a grand slam: she just woke up in a good mood.’ But to win two of them, that changes it. Also it was a tough draw – I had to beat three Czech girls to win.”

I ask why the Czech Republic is producing so many fine players – three of the current top 20 women are Czech. Kvitová knows her tennis history. She guides me through the Czech greats, starting with Jaroslav Drobný, who won three grand slams (the French Open, twice, and Wimbledon) in the 50s, then on to Jan Kodeš, who won the same three grand slams in the 70s. In the 80s, Navratilova dominated the women’s game, while Ivan Lendl was world No 1 for 270 weeks.

When Czechoslovakia was part of the eastern bloc, tennis was a means of escape, Kvitová says. “They could travel through tennis. Otherwise they stayed in Czechoslovakia. After Martina and Lendl, every kid played. They say it’s an expensive sport, but at the end of the day you just need a racket and ball, and you can play against the wall.” These days, she says, it’s a virtuous circle – the more good players there are, the more competition, and the more it motivates the next generation of Czech players.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest With her father in 2014, after her second Wimbledon win, beating Eugenie Bouchard 6-3, 6-0, in just 55 minutes. Photograph: Reuters

She hasn’t won another grand slam since 2014. In 2015, she suffered from glandular fever. In 2016, she played disastrously in all four majors, and at the end of that year was attacked. When she reached the final of the Australian Open in January this year, it was the first time she had gone beyond the quarter-final in a major tournament since winning Wimbledon. While the experts agreed Kvitová was unplayable on her day, she was infuriatingly inconsistent. Some said she lacked the desire to be a great champion, but when I ask her about this, she says it isn’t true – until the attack she was, if anything, too hard on herself; she wanted to be one of the Czech greats like Navratilova and Lendl. These days, she puts herself under less pressure.

There is another positive that has come out of her trauma, she says. “I learned a lot about myself. I always knew I was a fighter on the court, but I didn’t know I was a fighter off the court as well.” Physically? “No, emotionally.” Had she ever had to fight before? “No, not even at school.” Was she surprised by her strength? “Afterwards, yes, because he could have killed me.”

After her assailant entered the flat at 8.30am, pretending to be a plumber, he asked her to turn on the water in her bathroom. She did, and that’s when he took out a knife with a 10-inch blade and put it to her neck. Kvitová grabbed the knife with both hands, holding the blade with her left hand, and managed to wrestle it away from him. In doing so, every finger on her left hand was lacerated and the nerves in her thumb and index finger were severed. She fell on the floor. When she reached for her mobile phone, he pushed it away. There was blood everywhere, she says, and she was still facing the intruder, who showed no sign of wanting to leave. “My mental strength came in that moment. I tried to get him to leave my flat. So I started to speak with him and then he left.”

She can’t remember how long it took – five to 10 minutes. Something incredible must have happened in those moments, I say, because he may well have decided to kill her at that point – he could see all the blood, he knew he would go to jail for a long time if caught, and she could describe him perfectly. She nods. “Exactly. And he definitely knew that I was going to the police, so, yes, he could have killed me.”

What did you say to him? “I offered him money.” He asked how much she had and she said 10,000 crowns (£348). “I said, ‘Are you going to take the money and leave?’ He wanted time. He told me he needed time to think. I said, ‘Well, I don’t have the time for you to think about it here, I have to go to the hospital, so I’m going to give you the money.’ So he went, ‘OK’ and then he left.” She comes to a stop. “If he had had the time to think, in the end he would have killed me.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Sometimes I have this huge fear that somebody is at my back.’ Photograph: Frank Bauer/The Guardian. Hair and makeup: Eva Svobodova

Kvitová admits she was surprised by her self-possession. She phoned the ambulance and the police, then called her doctor and told him to call a hand surgeon she knew. Was she aware how badly injured she was? “I didn’t want to look.” As she talks, I stare at that left hand. It looks perfect. She turns it over for me. All five digits have delicate scarred rivulets running down them. Again, she says how lucky she was. The operation lasted four hours. Even today, the mobility is not 100% and there is no feeling in the tips of her thumb and index finger.

Did you always think you would play again? “Yes,” she says decisively. But then she pauses. “I did have a brief thought that I wouldn’t. I said, I’m still alive so I’m going to do something else. So I started to study communications at university. I thought, if I don’t play again, I need to do something with my life.”

Kvitová says her fellow tennis players were very supportive, sending messages and videos on social media, and there was an emotional reunion when she played at the French Open in 2017. Still, something had changed. “They were looking at me a little bit differently. I don’t think they knew how to speak to me, how they should be, how they should behave. Nobody really knows what you are feeling.” If they’d asked, what would she have said to them? “‘Just be normal.’ That was my main goal, that I could be the same as before. The same tennis player and girl, not a victim. That’s all I wanted to be again, which I have managed now. Of course, I have moments when it’s really bad, but that’s normal. I want to be known for my tennis, not because somebody attacked me.”

It’s remarkable that you have discovered so many inner strengths, I say. “Yes,” she says quietly, “but I haven’t told you the negative side yet.” I sense she doesn’t quite know where to start. “I didn’t go out for so long. I just stayed with people I know, especially my family, because I didn’t trust anybody. And that is the very bad thing about it.” Isn’t it inevitable that she would go through a period like that? Suddenly those big blue eyes start to well up. “I don’t trust in people now. Especially men.” She laughs through her tears. “That is why I’m single, probably. I am trusting of people I have known for a long time, but I’m not very trusting of people who I have just known a short while. I can’t go in a taxi alone with men. When I’m in the city or in the street, I’m almost running. Sometimes, I have this huge fear that somebody is at my back. It’s hard.”

Sometimes you feel unbelievable, and sometimes crappy. We have those hormones, right? Guys just think about the tennis

Has she seen a therapist? “Yes. I think it was helpful. I don’t have therapy any more.” Does she think she was too trusting, I ask: many people wouldn’t let strangers into their apartment without an appointment. “I don’t think I was, no. When I was travelling, I’d never know who was due to come around to do some work. For me, it was natural to open the door, because it could have been the doping people.” Professional tennis players have to provide a one-hour window every day, when they will be available for drug testing.

Twelve months after the attack, 33-year-old Radim Zondra was arrested; in March this year he was convicted of serious battery and illegal entry into her apartment, and imprisoned for eight years (he was by then serving another prison sentence for a separate offence). It was reported that he hadn’t specifically targeted Kvitová.

Has the verdict eased her mind? “I think so. I always wanted him to be in jail. So, yes, for me, it’s good that they convicted him, and he’s there.” Has it been cathartic? Now it’s her turn to look at me blankly. I try again: does she feel she can breathe again now he is in prison? “I didn’t feel like that at the time. For me the worst was when I had to go to court and give evidence.” She testified in a separate room at the Brno regional courthouse, to avoid seeing Zondra. “Afterwards I felt much better. But giving evidence was terrifying – I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest At the Australian Open final in January, after losing to Naomi Osaka. Photograph: AP

Gradually, Kvitová says, she is regaining her independence, but it is a slow, painful process. “I stayed with my family for three months, and now I am living by myself in Prague. The first months were tough. I’d be in bed and if I heard a noise from the bathroom, I’d be thinking, oh my God.” She wants to relearn to live by herself, though. “I wanted to be me again. It was terrible that Mum and Dad, my brothers, my coaches, had to do everything for me.” Do they feel you’ve changed? She thinks about it. “It’s an interesting question. I’ve never asked them, and they never tell me.”

***

One thing that delights Kvitová about playing again is that the women’s game is changing: she is convinced it is more exciting than it has ever been. Yes, she says, the men’s game has been blessed by a generation of greats, but it has been so predictable, with the semi-final of virtually every major tournament contested by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. Look at the women’s game today, she says. “The first 18 titles of the year were won by 18 different players. It’s unbelievable. The gaps between the players are getting smaller and smaller. It’s really about the day. Sometimes you wake up and you feel unbelievable, and sometimes so crappy. We have those hormones, right?” She laughs. “The guys can just think about the tennis – they are a little bit different to us.”

She believes the old guard is changing, and says there is a greater camaraderie than when she started out. For years there were famously bitter rivalries, notably between Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. “The locker room is more free now. Maybe there’s no pecking order, maybe it’s just the generational shift. It’s not as stressed. There is not as much hate.”

Twenty-six years ago, 19-year-old Monica Seles was stabbed in the back on court at the Hamburg Open, by a man obsessed with her great rival Steffi Graf. It remains the most shocking incident associated with tennis, possibly with professional sport. Seles was a phenomenon – she had already won eight grand slams and it was predicted that she would go on to break every record. She returned to the game two years later, and enjoyed some success, but won only one more major tournament.

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I ask Kvitová if she has spoken to Seles since the attack. Her face lights up. “I have, actually. She came up to me last year at a pre-Wimbledon party. We’d never met before. We said how much we admired each other for coming back after everything we’d been through.” Again, she looks tearful. “Suddenly I saw somebody who had been in a very similar situation, somebody who understood. For her it happened on court, for me it was the apartment. For her the court was an unlucky place, for me it was the apartment.”

It’s not surprising that Seles struggled when she returned, I say. “Yes, but she won a grand slam after it!” Kvitová says instantly. Her message is clear. She still has her eye on that prize, and a third Wimbledon title would do just nicely, thank you.

As we get up to leave, I tell her that returning to the game as she has is a wonderful achievement. She admits it hasn’t been easy. “An interview like this reminds me what happened.” I feel guilty about taking her back to the moment, but as I start to apologise, it becomes clear that I don’t need to. “Talking about it reminds me what I have come through,” she says. “It reminds me that I should be proud of myself.”

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