Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova yesterday said she was happy to learn that the man who in 2016 attacked her with a knife at her home in the Czech Republic had been sentenced to eight years in prison.
“I heard that this morning,” Kvitova said after falling to Australian Ashleigh Barty in three sets in the quarter-finals of the Miami Open in a match that finished after midnight thanks to a lengthy rain delay on Tuesday night.
Radim Zondra, 33, who is in prison for another crime, was sentenced on charges of serious battery and illegal entry into Kvitova’s apartment in December 2016.
Eva Angyalossy, a spokeswoman for the Czech regional court in the southern city of Brno, told reporters that Zondra, who pleaded not guilty, had two weeks to appeal the verdict.
Kvitova, 29, said that she was glad to put the incident further behind her.
“I am happy for the news and I am glad that it is over,” she said.
Left-handed Kvitova suffered career-threatening injuries to her playing hand as she fought off the intruder at her home in Prostejov.
Despite grim forecasts by doctors, who even warned she might lose her fingers, the 2011 and 2014 Wimbledon champion has recovered and continued her successful career.
After slipping to as low as world 29th after the attack, Kvitova entered the Miami Open ranked second, having reached the Australian Open final in January.
However, her hopes of overtaking Japan’s Naomi Osaka atop the rankings in Miami ended with her loss to Barty.
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