“Everything went really well,” said a fatigued but upbeat Kelly Fisher, from her hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit at Golden Jubilee National Hospital near Glasgow, in the United Kingdom. “The doctors were over the moon. They said it couldn’t have gone better.”

Fisher, ranked second in the world by the World Pool-Billiard Association and the sixth-ranked player on the Women’s Professional Billiards Association tour, underwent surgery on July 22 to repair an atrial septal defect, also known as a “hole in the heart.” While a congenital defect, the 35-year-old Fisher had not experienced any severe problems until recently.

“I’d been bothered with a palpitation for many years,” Fisher said a week prior to the surgery, “but was told in 2009 that it was just a heart murmur, and that I had nothing to worry about.”

Fisher said she noticed that the palpitations were becoming more frequent in the past year, so she scheduled a doctor’s appointment in early March, following the Amway Cup in Taiwan (where Fisher finished second to Yu-Chieh Chou). Following tests at her local hospital in Dumfries, Scotland, Fisher was referred to Golden Jubilee in Dunbartonshire. An MRI and further tests discovered the congenital defect, which showed damage to a valve and a dilation of the right side of her heart.

“I was very lucky that it was found now,” Fisher said, “before it caused any permanent damage to my heart.”

A full recovery is expected to take three months, but Fisher said she hopes to shave a few weeks of the recovery time to participate in the Women’s World 9-Ball Championship in Guilin, China in mid-October.

“The doctors and staff were fantastic in my preparation for the operation,” said Fisher, who was expected to be out of ICU less than 48 hours after surgery. “I was off the ventilator very quickly. With plenty of rest and physio, recovery should be good. My goal is to be fit and ready for the 9-ball world championships.”