“I really thought that December 17th would be the last night of my life.” With this blatant sentence, the Russian Anna Jambulilowna Tschakwetadze opens a very emotional report on the Brazilian podcast “A voz do tenis”.
Everything starts so well. In 2007, Chakvetadze was just 20 years old and is shaking up the tennis circus. She is winning WTA tournaments in Hobart and s’Hertogenbosch. At the Australian Open and in Roland Garros, she advanced to the quarter-finals, at the US Open even to the semi-finals. She is now in fifth place in the WTA rankings.
The way is paved. Everything is there for a great tennis career – the talent, the hard work, the discipline, the success. Everything is right. Until December 17, 2007.
Masked and armed
Chakvetadze is just coming home. She was in Belgium and played an exhibition game against Justine Henin, the world number one at the time. She is back with her father in the family home just outside Moscow.
“We were exhausted and went straight to sleep,” says the 33-year-old, describing the events of that time. “All of a sudden, at 3am, I woke up. There were five huge men in our house. I lay there and didn’t understand what was going on. They wore masks, dark dresses and looked huge. “
Then Anna hears a scream. “I knew it came from my father. I panicked. To be honest, I thought it was my last moments. It felt like the end. “
Gangsters tie up Anna
The men threaten the father with pistols and knives and hit him with the butt. “They were heavily armed,” said Chakvetadze. “Everything was really really scary.”
When Anna tries to get out of her room, she is tied up. “They pulled so tight that I couldn’t feel my hands for days.” The gangsters force the parents to open the safe. You take everything with you that is not nailed down. Father Jambuli is injured, his shoulder is broken and needs an operation. Anna’s little brother Roman doesn’t notice anything. He’s sleeping.
Parents still live there today
Why do the gangsters choose this house? Chakvetadze says: «They knew who I am. They knew I had just won a Rolex at the exhibition the day before. This wasn’t an arbitrary raid. It must have been planned for some time. “
Chakwetadse’s parents still live in the same house. For Anna incomprehensible: “I don’t want to spend any more time there.” She also only lets her 2-year-old daughter Kira go there for “three or four hours a day”. “I don’t think that’s okay.”
Athletic crash and collapse
Her career goes downhill after the robbery. «I could never meet the expectations for 2008. It got worse and worse. It felt like it never ends. I lost world rankings, lost all points. I didn’t work any more, ”she describes the sporting decline.
In 2009 and 2010 she stayed in the top 100. In 2011 she collapsed during a game in Dubai against Caroline Wozniacki. She repeatedly complains of dizzy spells.
“It could have been worse”
In September 2013 she pulls the rip cord, also because she always has back pain. They are chronic and Chakvetadze ended her career at the age of 26. A career that might have turned out differently had it not been for that fateful night in December 2007.
Today Anna is a TV commentator for tennis broadcasts and has various projects going, including a junior academy. And dedicates himself entirely to her daughter Kira. “It could have been better, it could have been worse. I’m just grateful that I survived that night. ” (leo)
