'The New York Times'As Russia faces Italy in the Fed Cup final without its top 11 players, Anna Chakvetadze will be watching and reminiscing . She represented her country eight times at the Fed Cup and helped Russia defeat Italy in the final six years ago.

A few weeks later, her perspective on life and her career changed forever.

Chakvetadze, then 20, was the new darling of Russian tennis after a breakthrough season that included a trip to the U.S. Open semifinals and a move into the top five rankings.

But on Dec. 18, 2007, six armed men broke into her family home outside Moscow. They tied up Chakvetadze, threatened her at knifepoint and beat her parents before making off with $306,000 worth of cash and goods.

"I thought that my life was over, at times, during that night," she said in a recent phone interview. "They had weapons, and we didn't know what they were going to do."

It was not an act of random violence. Chakvetadze had been targeted . As she told reporters after the robbery, the thieves demanded the Rolex watch she had received at a recent exhibition in Belgium. As they left, they warned her: "Keep playing. We'll come again."

Chakvetadze kept playing, returning to the tour just two weeks later. Her career never reached the same heights again, and this fall , she announced her retirement at 26 after years of battling a crippling back injury .

The robbery was merely the first step in a chain of events that led to the premature end of her career.

Chakvetadze said the physical injuries had a more lasting effect.

"Mentally, I completely forgot about it in a few days," she said. "The first day or two were difficult because everyone was calling me and asking, 'Anna, how are you feeling?'

"But 2008 was a tough season. I hadn't had an offseason because of the robbery, and it was tough to put everything together for the tournaments in Australia at the start of the year. I couldn't practice, and I was a bit injured.

"Looking back, that was the time when I needed to take a few weeks off, but instead, I played every week, and my body wasn't prepared for it."

Chakvetadze's fragile physique began to buckle under the train of the tour. At the start of 2010, she began having the back problems that ultimately ended her career. A year later, a virus caused her to faint on the court in the United Arab Emirates.

After multiple comebacks, she made the painful decision to end her career after being semiretired in 2012. Her decision was not without a few regrets.

"If I could turn back the clock, I would try to listen to my body more," she said. "I would not push myself so hard. When I was out for seven months in 2011, I wanted to practice more and become a better player. But when you have a break , you have to take it easy and start slow again. I was maybe rushing too much, and I wasn't ready for all the training I was putting myself through."

This season, many players have spoken about how they push themselves through the pain to stay on top.

Marion Bartoli decided she could no longer endure it and retired about a month after becoming Wimbledon champion.

"I was surprised," Chakvetadze said of Bartoli's decision. "But I understand because she's a hard worker. She practiced so hard all the time and she was playing a lot of tournaments, almost every week for a few years."

With Maria Sharapova also struggling with a shoulder injury, there has been plenty of focus on how the increase in power in the women's game is making players more prone to injury.

But Chakvetadze said the main problem was the decision-making of the athletes themselves.

"I think players get injured because they don't take breaks when they need to," she said. "They're trying to do too much, trying to play every week. Some tournaments are mandatory, and they have to play in some others because they've signed a contract. But sometimes, you're not playing your best and you're out of shape, and then maybe it's better to take some rest. It's not easy to know when to stop. If you've had a bad week, you want to put it right immediately, but in the long run , that's not so healthy."

Chakvetadze is still involved in tennis, commentating on Grand Slam events and coaching some of Russia's most promising junior players.

But her back injury has compromised her to the extent that she is not able to play full games against her young protégées.

She said she found it difficult to satisfy her competitive spirit now that she was no longer on the tour.

"Sometimes, when I watch tennis, I want to be at the tournaments to chat with the girls," she said.

"And I miss playing matches. I miss that feeling when you're playing well, you're in good shape and you feel there's so much you can achieve. But unfortunately, I had to quit . I thought I would quit a lot later than 26, but it wasn't to be."

The men who robbed her family, she said, were never brought to justice. But after coming so close to losing everything, she says she became a different person.

"From then onwards, I've just been trying to enjoy the moment instead of thinking what could be better," she said. "During that night, I thought that it was all over, or at the very least I wasn't going to play ever again. Many different things went through my head, but these days I don't think about it anymore."

For now, Chakvetadze merely hopes to recover to the point that she can play a more active role as a coach . But what about a future comeback?

"Never say never," she said, laughing. "You never know what will happen in the next few days. Who knows what will happen in, say, three years? There's been so many players who've made comebacks over the past few years. Maybe I'll feel better and return. We'll see."