Tennis: Bubka ‘lucky to be alive’ after horror fall

Ukrainian Sergei Bubka. AFP FILE PHOTO

PARIS – Ukraine tennis player Sergei Bubka said he is lucky to be alive after suffering multiple fractures in a horrifying fall from a fourth-floor Paris apartment.

The 25-year-old son of Ukraine’s former Olympic and world champion polevault legend, and boyfriend of current women’s number one Victoria Azarenka, plunged to the ground from the flat in the French capital’s plush 16th arrondissement last month.

“The circumstances leading to the fall were all so unlucky, but since the accident I feel I have been really lucky,” Bubka told www.atpworldtour.com.

“I was lucky to be alive and not have damaged anything major. I was lucky my friends found me and took me to a great hospital where they took great care of me.”

Bubka was attending a friend’s party when the accident happened.

After getting locked inside a bathroom, he leaned to look outside a window, hoping to reach the next room but lost his footing and crashed to the ground.

Bubka, the world number 186, underwent nine hours of surgery to repair the damage.