As fierce a competitor as she is during a match, Petra Kvitova was all smiles after beating local Ashleigh Barty in the quarter-final of the Australian Open.
But suddenly teared up when on-court interviewer Jim Courier asked her if she ever believed she’d get back here, in the semi-finals, after everything she’s been through in the past two years. “I didn’t really imagine being back in this great stadium again to play with the best. It’s great,” she said in an emotional moment.
Two years ago, at this time, she was recovering from a complicated surgery on her hand after a burglar attacked her with a knife during a home invasion. Her fingers, on the hand she holds a racquet, were almost severed and she feared she would never play tennis again. A year ago, she lost in the first round.
But this year, the eighth seed has been in fiery form in the five matches of Australian Open so far, dropping only 22 games and not a single set. She has outplayed the field in Melbourne so far, just days after lifting the Sydney International with a gritty win over Barty and is on a 10-match winning streak.
First Grand Slam semis of second career
This is her first Grand Slam semi-final after her comeback from surgery. First, in fact, since her second and last Wimbledon title in 2014. This is her first Australian Open semi-final in seven years as well and with the kind of form she has been in, could well mean her first final. In her own words, this is “first semi-final of her second career.”
And if her emotional words on courts tell you how much this means, maybe the words from her opponents will.
Barty, who was gunning for a place in the semis backed by her home crowd, was the first to wish her luck. “I think from all of the girls in the locker room, it’s amazing just to see her back out here. It wasn’t the same when she wasn’t here,” she told reporters after the match.
Irina Begu, who was crushed by the 28-year-old 6-1, 6-3, embraced her warmly at the net and said , “If you’re going to play like that you’re going to win it.” Bencic, who lost 6-1, 6-4, simply said: When Petra is on fire, she is on fire.
Seventeen-year-old sensation Amanda Anismova, who a match before has decimated 11th seed and dark horse Aryna Sabalenka, said: “I got tennis lesson today, but at least it was from one of the best in the world.
This should give a fair idea of just how admired Kvitova is off-court. But when on-court, she is a different beast.
From fighting the burglar in 2016 to fighting her way back to tennis in 2017, she went in to win five titles in 2018. Although she had a strangely poor run at Grand Slams, with no semi-final run in more than five years, the two-time Wimbledon champion kept making deep runs on the tour.
And in the off-season, it has all come together for the Czech who is provisionally the world No 1 with her win on Tuesday.
With her height and her left-handed style, Kvitova has always had the big game that makes Slam champions. But heading into 2019, she looks fitter, more toned around her shoulders and is absorbing and generating tremendous power and pace on her strokes. The deft angles the southpaw used to find are now sure-shot winners with sizzling finish.
Against Barty, she fired 25 winners and mixed it up brilliantly with wily drops and solid backhands. She faced break points in the first two games of the second set, but saved the only time she looked less than a 100 per cent in the match.
But the more intriguing gameplan was how she mentally got herself ready to maintain her level at the big stage. After her Wimbledon shock, she had joked that she have to skip Grand Slam tournaments in future. But after the match, she said that she has been working had to control her nerves at the big stage.
More dangerously for her opponents, Kvitova also said that she has a backup plan now to counter her sometimes erratic play. “If my game, it’s not really working, I do kind of have B plan, which I’m trying to use if I’m not really feeling the best,” she said.
In the last-four match, she will take on unseeded American Danielle Collins, an almost unknown quantity who blitzed Angelique Kerber away. But if Kvitova plays on this level, she could return the American’s fire with rockets of her own.
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