MIAMI: Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova says she was happy to learn that the man who attacked her with a knife at her Czech home in 2016 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 Tuesday night rain delay.
The 33-year-old Radim Zondra, who is currently in prison for another crime, was sentenced on charges of serious battery and illegal entry into Kvitova’s flat in December of 2016.
Eva Angyalossy, a spokeswoman for the regional court in the southern Czech city of Brno, told AFP that Zondra, who pleaded not guilty had two weeks to appeal the verdict.
Kvitova, 29, said 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.
Kvitova suffered career-threatening injuries to her playing left hand as she fought off the intruder at her home in the eastern Czech town of 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 29th in the world after the attack, Kvitova entered the Miami Open ranked second in the world, having reached the Australian Open final in January.
Her hopes of overtaking Japan’s Naomi Osaka atop the rankings in Miami, however, ended with her loss to Barty.