Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova bid an emotional farewell to tennis as she ended her illustrious career with a first-round defeat at the US Open.
The 35-year-old suffered a 6-1 6-0 loss to France’s Diane Parry on a sparsely-filled Grandstand Stadium on Monday.
Czech Kvitova said in June that she would end her 18-year career in New York.
Kvitova triumphed at the All England Club in 2011 and 2014, claimed a total of 31 WTA Tour titles and reached a career-high of second in the world rankings.
“I wanted to put out a better performance but it was tough to know that maybe it was my last one – [I’m] emotional,” Kvitova said on court afterwards.
“It’s been a long and amazing journey.”
Meanwhile, French former world number four Caroline Garcia also brought her career to an end after a 6-4 4-6 6-3 defeat by Kamila Rakhimova at Flushing Meadows.
Kvitova has been a fan favourite for many years thanks to her huge groundstrokes and booming left-handed serve.
There were fears her career would end prematurely after she was stabbed in her left hand by an intruder at her home in 2016.
The attack damaged tendons and nerves in her playing hand but she returned to playing in June 2017 and went on to reach the Australian Open final two years later.
In recent years she has fallen down the rankings and last made the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam in 2020.
Kvitova missed the entire 2024 season to have her son, Petr, and only returned to action in February.
It took her five tournaments to register her first victory – which came against Irina-Camelia Begu on clay in Rome in May – but that was her only win since becoming a mother.
Almost two months on from bidding a tearful goodbye to Wimbledon – which she called her “special place” – Kvitova called time on her career at the tournament where she twice reached the quarter-finals.
After quickly going down a break against world number 107 Parry, she rallied to reach 40-0 on serve then saved a break point to get her first game on the board.
But that proved to be her only success in a one-sided first set that Parry wrapped up in just 25 minutes.
Kvitova exited the court between sets to regroup – already visibly emotional at the prospect of this being her last match – but the second followed a similar pattern.
Winning just four points behind her own serve, Kvitova suffered a second-set bagel as Parry saw out a clinical victory.
“Since I wake up this morning, I felt it. I felt it would be not good,” Kvitova added.
“I couldn’t eat. I was really nervous. couldn’t move, I couldn’t swing, I couldn’t do anything.
“It was really difficult but I’m glad I did it.”
‘Time to move on’ for Garcia
Image source: Getty Images
Image caption: Garcia won the French Open doubles title twice alongside partner Kristina Mladenovic
Garcia, who had her best Grand Slam singles result in New York with a semi-final showing in 2022, announced in May that it was “time to move on” from tennis.
The 31-year-old has spoken openly about her mental health struggles, ending her 2024 season early after being left “exhausted” by anxiety and panic attacks.
As well as managing a shoulder injury, Garcia said she had been suffering from the mental toll of life on the tennis tour.
Despite winning 11 WTA Tour singles titles and two Grand Slam doubles trophies in her career, Garcia said she was fixated on her failures, rather than her successes.
She has previously spoken out about the “damaging” abuse tennis players suffer after going out in the first round at last year’s US Open.
“The last couple of years for me were hard and kind of dark,” Garcia said.
“I almost left last year by hating tennis, and I thought it was the worst sport out there.
“But I did a lot of work on myself to understand what was going on, do one more season and leave it my own way.”
