Chakvetadze craves a big tournament try out after 1st round opponent retires
January 15, 2008
After a brutal home invasion last month interrupted her Australian Open preparations, sixth-seeded Anna Chakvetadze is still lacking a much-needed hit-out after her first round opponent retired in the opening game.
Chakvetadze and her parents were tied up by six masked assailants who broke into her home outside Moscow on Dec. 18, stealing money and goods worth more than US$300,000 and beating her father.
The 20-year-old player said she lost feeling in the fingers on her left hand for several days as a result of being bound around her wrists.
Her first match of this year's Open lasted just six points Tuesday before her opponent Andrea Petkovic retired with an injured right knee with the score at 0-0 and deuce.
"I think it's better to play some matches before a Grand Slam event," a disappointed Chakvetadze said. "I did play some exhibition (matches). I lost actually in the first round in Sydney, so it didn't happen."
Chakvetadze said she's trying to put last month's robbery out of her mind and concentrate on the Australian Open.
"I feel better, I feel OK and I'm thinking about tennis right now, trying not to think about these things that happened with me and my family," she said.
Chakvetadze is accompanied by her father Djambuli, while her mother and nine-year-old brother Roman remain in Moscow.
"Now we have everything," she said of the beefed up security at the family home. "We have a bodyguard in the house, we have an alarm. But before it happened we had just security on the gate."
Chakvetadze, in her fourth Australian Open, reached the quarter-finals here last year before losing to eventual runner-up Maria Sharapova.