Petra Kvitová played Wimbledon and the previous winning tournament in Eastbourne with wrist inflammation. She had to relieve the pain with pills. The Czech tennis player revealed this after Saturday’s loss to Paula Badosa in the third round of the London Grand Slam.
London (from our correspondent) – Already after the first round of this year’s Wimbledon, she indicated that she was struggling with health problems again. She didn’t want to be specific. But after a brave fight with the world number four, Petra Kvitová admitted: “My wrist has swollen again, it has become inflamed.”
The pain was already heard before the general on the south coast of Great Britain, which Kvitova dominated last week.
“I’ve been taking medication for about a fortnight, which is a bummer. It’s not pleasant. I had to play under the pills,” she explained at the press conference.
She did not attribute the close loss to Badosa after sets 5:7, 6:7 to health problems.
“I certainly didn’t lose because of that. I played with the idea that I would somehow overcome it and that happened. Sometimes my hand was maybe not as strong as I would have liked, my racket wobbled, but I’m used to that since the hand operation. I wasn’t surprised it was annoying,” said the winner of the tournament from 2011 and 2014.
The 32-year-old Kvitová certainly did not disappoint on the center court in the expected battle of the early players. In important moments, however, the Spaniard, who was eight years younger, performed better.
The Czech made eleven break points, but converted only one in the opening itself. In the second act, Badosa didn’t give her any chances on her serve, she didn’t use nine of them herself.
“Yes, this is a statistic that simply shows the truth. I couldn’t do it. She didn’t do anything wrong in those exchanges and served great. She made it very difficult for me on the serve,” stated Kvitová.
In the first set, there were two balls from success. At 5:4 and 30:30, however, she pulled the short end on her own serve.
“I could have taken that set, no question about it. I could have won the tie-break in the second set as well. I was missing a piece,” she said.
She felt good physically. She was moving, joking. She just didn’t rate her own movement as ideal. “It was also the wind that blew the balloons. But I have to say that I enjoyed it. It was perfect, the auditorium was full, I had a nice experience.”
Objectively and according to her own feeling, Kvitová played her best tennis this year on grass. But now he has to put the rocket down.
“I won’t touch it for a few days or weeks. We’ll see what the doctors tell me. I’m worried about my wrist because it’s the third or fourth time this year that it’s swollen like this. It’s poisoning and the drugs aren’t a miracle for the body either ,” she regretted another forced pause.
According to her, only rest will help against inflammation. “I’m not allowed to play tennis. Today I tried to play without pills and you could tell,” she added.
He wants to return to Wimbledon, his most beloved tournament. “I don’t think that far ahead, but I really like it here.”
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