Czech police have officially shelved their investigation into last year’s knife attack on two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, citing a lack of evidence.
“Despite extensive investigation, we have not managed to identify the attacker to date,” detective Jan Lisicky told reporters Thursday.
“We shelved the case on November 8, 2017… but, if we find new facts — if we identify the attacker — we will immediately start criminal proceedings.”
Kvitova suffered damage to the tendons and nerves of her playing hand when she fought off a knife-wielding intruder in December 2016.
Czech police told CNN at the time that they believed the assailant was “around 35 years old” and that the attack had occurred just before 0830 CET in her apartment near the center of Prostejov, a small city about 160 miles east of Prague.
“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said detective Lisicky. “The attacker had no idea whom he was facing at first.”
Kvitova said at the time she was left “shaken” and “fortunate to be alive,” with the player’s surgeon Radek Kebrle admitting he feared the chances of her playing tennis again were “very low” for “multiple reasons.”
But Kvitova successfully returned to the court at the French Open in May this year, bowing out in the second round but telling reporters “I’ve already won my biggest fight.”
Still unable to feel two of her fingers a full five months after the attack, she has since won the Birmingham Aegon Classic and risen to No. 29 in the WTA world rankings.
