'I'm totally ready to retire. I don't regret anything'

Before hanging up her racket, Petra Kvitova reflects on SW19 glory and her 'second career' after 2016 knife attack

- Simon Cambers

It would be tempting for Petra Kvitova to dwell on what might have been as she prepares for what will be her last tournament before she retires from tennis. For all her many achievements – she won two Wimbledon titles, 31 tournaments worldwide and reached world No 2 – there has long been a feeling that she could, maybe should, have won even more. Martina Navratilova, her fellow Czech who won Wimbledon a record nine times, said she felt Kvitova could go on to win it five times. But like Rafael Nadal, who always found a way to put things in perspective, Kvitova heads into retirement content that she has given everything she had.

“It’s my personality, probably, that I didn’t win more,” Kvitova, 35, says on the eve of the US Open. “I think I had a talent. Maybe I could work a little bit more, but then, on the other hand, I think maybe it will kill my talent or my mentality.

“I think I could [have won more]. But what can I do? I played in the final of the Australian Open [in 2019], I lost to Naomi Osaka when she played incredibly in the third set. There are always a few question marks in the number of grand slams. Being world No 1, that’s what I’m missing. Probably that’s the thing I would love to have. But if it’s not happened, it’s not happened. It would not give me a better life or make me happier.”

Given what Kvitova went through in the middle of her career, it’s an impressive sentiment.