Any hopes Petra Kvitova may have had of competing in the 2017 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships are effectively over after the left hand injury she sustained during a robbery at her home ruled her out for at least three months.
Kvitova, 26, has participated in the Dubai tournament six times including each of the past four years, winning the title in 2013. However, the two-time Wimbledon champion suffered an injury on all five fingers and two nerves in her left hand, her racket hand, after fighting with a burglar at her home in the eastern Czech town of Prostejov.
Doctors “stitched the injured finger tendons” during the surgery that took three hours and 45 minutes, Kvitova’s spokesman Karel Tejkal said.
“The hand will now be bandaged for two days, then put in a splint for 6-8 weeks.
“She can’t burden the tendons for at least three months.
“The injury is serious, but the surgeon says Petra is young and healthy and there is no reason why she can’t resume tennis.”
The 2017 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships are scheduled to start on February 19, meaning Kvitova’s hopes of taking part look remote.
Meanwhile, support poured in from fellow tennis stars. World No 8 Madison Keys, former world No 1 Ana Ivanovic, French Open champion Garbine Muguruza, and Olympic champion Monica Puig all offered their support on Twitter.
The burglary adds a sombre ending to an rather lacklustre year for Kvitova, by her own impressive standards.
Kvitova, who slid from world No 6 to her current ranking of 16, sacked two coaches before winning the Wuhan Open in China in October after a 13-month title drought.
She added a victory at Zhuhai, China in November and was on the Czech Republic team that won the Fed Cup later that month, beating France for their fifth title in six years.
On December 1, Kvitova hired a new coach, Czech Jiri Vanek, who had led her Fed Cup teammate Karolina Pliskova to this year’s US Open final.
Bronze medallist from the Rio Olympics and Wimbledon champion in 2011 and 2014, Kvitova is also recovering from a stress fracture to her foot.
Just hours before the attack, she said the injury had forced her out of the mixed doubles Hopman Cup starting on January 1.
She said she had hoped to start next year at Sydney on January 8 to warm up for the Australian Open -- a plan that she will have to drop following doctors’ orders.
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