Petra Kvitova: 'Just a few people believed I could do it again'
Petra Kvitova feels overwhelmed for reaching the Australian Open after her straight-set match win over Danielle Collins on Thursday. In press conference, the Czech player said: "It's been a while. It's been five years. You know, that's why I worked pretty hard to be back there. It just tastes very great. So I'm really happy to be back there again. To be honest, I think not very many people believe that I can do that again, to stand on the court and play tennis and kind of play on this level. It was just really few of them, I think. I'm very happy to have those few around me, which is the best, I think. And definitely feels great. Hopefully for them, as well, for my family and for everybody who was there when I needed it."
Kvitova, who suffered a knife accident back in December 2016, added: "I'm still not really believing that I'm in the final. It's kind of weird, to be honest, as well, that I didn't know even if I gonna play tennis again. Yeah, it wasn't really nice time to be dealing with everything. It wasn't only physically but mentally was very tough, as well. It took me really while to believe, to the people around me again, and especially to the men, for sure. So I wasn't pretty confident to be alone somewhere. I do remember coming the first time I was alone in the locker room in Prague in the club, and I came to my team and said, Well, it was the first time I was alone there, and, yeah, it was a good one today that I really felt okay. Yeah, it was a lot of, a lot of work with the hand. It was a lot of recovery, treatment. You know, it was – I think that's kind of the sporting life help me a lot with that. I just set up the mind that I really wanted to come back, and I just did everything. So I was, like, practising with the hand, like, two, three times per day, which I don't know if the normal person will do that, but of course that I needed the hand to be back on the court. Not only on the court but be able to kind of live normal life. Yeah, that's how it was. Like those three months were very, very tough. I find out later that my doctor was very – he wasn't really happy with my hand during the second month, because the scars were very, very tight and hard, and I couldn't really do anything with that. Luckily he didn't tell me, like, during that period. He waited when he could tell me. So I think that kind of the mental side was there, and I really need to be strong and not really thinking too negatively about it, but of course, those thoughts were there, as well."
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from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2UfJRa9
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