Dubai: One couldn't help noticing that at least one familiar face was missing at this year's Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge: the ever-smiling face of Austrian player Daniela Klemenschits, who died of cancer recently.
As regulars for at least the past five editions, the Klemenschits twins were always a welcome addition at the Habtoor Grand Resort and Spa at the annual Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge that concluded on Saturday.
However, in April 2008 Daniela succumbed in her native Salzburg, aged 25, to a rare form of abdominal cancer called "squamous cell carcinoma" that left her twin devastated and out of the game that they have grown up loving as their own.
The cancer detection forced the two — affectionately called the ‘K-Twins' — to stop playing the sport they loved so much.
Daniela underwent surgery at least 15 times and Sandra four times.
Daniela died while Sandra survived to tell her story of how her twin has always been her mentor, guide and friend even today though she is no longer present with her physically.
"I can feel her presence with me. She died, but she gave me so many lessons. She taught me that there is something much more to life than merely going through it. She taught me how to live," Sandra told Gulf News.
Gone but not forgotten, Sandra celebrated the absence of Daniela last month by organising a tennis dinner and programme in her native Austria in close coordination with another Dubai regular, chair umpire Gerald Mandl.
Good times
"She is so special to me and I keep on remembering the good times we've had together while at various venues around the world on the circuit," Sandra recollected.
"Although so much in pain, she was always so positive and she taught me how to live. She showed me how best to live this life merely because it is only once that we live," Sandra recalled. Until the illness put them off, Sandra had won more than 20 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit, and most of them were with her twin Daniela although they never reached a WTA doubles final despite breaking into the top 100 on the tour. Sandra returned to the doubles tour in July, 2008 and has since won seven more doubles titles.
"I know life will never be the same for me again as I will keep missing Dani all the while. But this is life and I wish there would be more people who would really live life to its full rather than hold grudges. There is nothing that cannot be solved by talking about it," Sandra said.
Sandra has been a winner in Dubai in 2005 taking home the doubles crown of a $10,000 (Dh36,731.50) tournament in the company of Kyra Nagy — the first winner of the Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge in 1998.
And this year, Sandra was seeded fourth in the doubles along with Tatjana Malek where they lost 7-5, 7-6 (3) against Ksenia Pervak and Lesya Tsurenko in the first round of the doubles here.
"There is so much more to life than just playing tennis. But I could never think of stopping my tennis, no matter what the adversity. After all, it is in the tennis court and its surroundings that I feel the presence of my sister the most," Sandra said.
