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BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL

December 30, 2018

Rennae Stubbs

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Q. Renee, you've had a few handful of days that you've been able to work with Karolina.
RENNAE STUBBS: Let's see. When did she get in here? 26th evening. So 27th. Three or four days.

Q. Is it mostly kind of catching up and things like that? What can you do in that kind of time frame?
RENNAE STUBBS: Yes. A little difficult. That's the one thing that I wish I had a little bit more time with her, in the off season, but having said that, Conchita and I, we talked quite extensively about what we wanted to work on, what our thought process was and what we felt she needed to get better at and what did she think, and everything that she thought is what I thought. So I was like, okay, I'm just going to leave it to you and not get too involved overly in what's happening and video it and send it to me, because I trust Conchita, and vice versa. We've spoken a little bit since I've been here.

That's the nice thing about the collaborative work with the two of us is that we don't have any egos with this thing. Listen, Conchita and I both have egos, but when it comes to what's best for Karolina, it's what's best for her. So to be honest with you, the first couple of days were really tough because of the jet lag, and she wasn't feeling that great when she got here. She had a little bit of a mild cold when she was flying here, but she slept the entire flight here and then didn't sleep at all the first night, which was a really bad rookie move from her.

But having said that, today was her best practice. She hit the ball unbelievable, and it's taken her two or three days to adjust, but she felt really good today. She's put a lot of training in as well off the court.

She has a few fitness coach, and just from what I've seen of what he's doing with her, I'm really happy with that as well. So I thought today she just looked absolutely at her best, so, yeah, I'm really happy, especially since she's playing tomorrow.

Q. Why Karolina? Why have you elected to get involved with her when there's so many other players you could be involved with? I realize she's 8 in the world.
RENNAE STUBBS: That's a good question. I've not really been asked that.

Because she asked. I mean, that's the most simple answer that I can give you. She asked me. She asked me two years ago. Going into Singapore, she stopped working with her coach at the US Open, in 2016. And she just asked me would I go to Singapore with her, and I said, yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I want to go and spend two weeks with one of the best players in the world?

I have to tell you the first time that I walked on the practice court with her that day, I thought I better do a decent job here because this is a really good player. And we had a really good week in Singapore. She won her first two matches really easily, and I thought this job is easy; I should have been doing this before. But I realize it's not easy. It's far from that. It's incredibly stressful.

And then she was already designated really to work with somebody else all of last year; and then that wasn't working out as comfortably as she wanted it to, so she called me up at Montreal. I was going up there for ESPN to work television, and she said, can you work with me for the rest of the year? And I said, sure, of course, if I can fit it into my television schedule, which is where the US Open was a difficult one for me because I'm doing tremendously long hours there for television.

So that's when I said, can I try and help bring somebody else into the picture to help us navigate this part of the year with me doing television? And if I'm going to do a job, I really want to do it well, and I just felt that I couldn't do the US Open gig with her as well as I wanted it. And it's what she needed. I mean, a full-time top player needs somebody 24/7, and I couldn't give that to her at the US Open, so I said, would you allow me to bring Conchita in and you can kind of on an interim -- that's the thing that I love about Karolina is that she was willing to even try that. Some players would just be a little bit annoyed that I would even suggest that, but I said, if you trust me, which she does, I think you will really like Conchita, because I had worked with Conchita as a player myself and her coaching me. So I knew what her coaching was like, and so we think similarly; we work as hard as each other. And I knew that Conchi would be really hard on her, and she really liked it. So I thought, great, this is going to work as far as us being able to share the duties a little bit because of my television schedule and my duties there, and also Conchita is quite busy this year with some Chinese players from the Chinese Tennis Association. So it worked out for us both. And the irony of -- and you know this story, but the irony was last year when I had an inkling that Kaja might call me to work with her, I was in Barcelona hitting tennis balls with Conchita, and I sort of said, I think she might call me; I have a feeling. And she said, well, we should do it together so we can share the duties, and I said, that's a great idea. And who knew two months later that that's actually what would happen?

So, yeah, that's why. She asked me. So, yeah, and it's been great. And she's just one of the best people that I've been around as far as on the tennis court is concerned. So it's been a joy.

Q. She's 26 now. Obviously it's an optimistic view that it could be like a Kerber path for her?
RENNAE STUBBS: I think it's a WTA path, to be honest. I think that now that what we've seen over the last few years is that tennis is -- it's not a sprint anymore. It's a marathon. These players -- you know, back in the day with the Hingises and the Steffi Grafs and Monica Seles and Jennifer Capriatis. You can go through the names of the early 90s players. That doesn't happen anymore. It's very rare that you're going to have a player that's dominating the sport of tennis at 20 or 21. That's just not going to happen anymore. Because the game is more physical now. So for me 26 is -- I think that now is the time, 26 to 30 is actually more of the pivotal time in tennis. And even after 30, because now I think the physicality of the sport, the women -- and the men -- just for the men you're seeing what's happening with them as well. The physicality is where tennis is, and they're learning to play better and better and better when they get older.

So for me Kaja is kind of getting to the point where she's starting to this is the start of the peak. And I think it's a Kerber, Wozniacki -- I mean, what is Halep? 25? 26? So for me that's where tennis is going. So for me this is -- Kaja is in the right age now to start doing even better.

Q. I think a lot of people looking at the Top 10, Top 20 now would probably say Karolina maybe results wise and everything is the best odd.
RENNAE STUBBS: Yeah.

Q. So how close, how far is she?
RENNAE STUBBS: I'll let you know in about a month. (Laughs).

Q. Fair.
RENNAE STUBBS: No. I think, look, yeah, I mean she's definitely in the list of players that have been the best player -- best of players that have not won a Grand Slam. Wozniacki is probably going, whew, I don't have to be that person anymore. And Halep. You start thinking about Karolina, Madison Keys, these players that have sort of made a final of a Grand Slam as Kaja has done and as Madison has. So, yeah, she's definitely in that category, and she's probably number one or two in that category.

Look, she's been World No. 1. So she can take that off the list. First-ever Czech player to ever do that. Something she can keep for the rest of her life, but yeah, there's absolutely no question that the Grand Slams and winning a Grand Slam is her goal.

Q. And from the fitness side that you were mentioning with the new fitness coach and you like what you're seeing, what is it that you like that you're seeing? And Karolina is always quite self-deprecating when it comes to her physicality.
RENNAE STUBBS: No!

Q. How much is there to go and what do you see as the next step for her there?
RENNAE STUBBS: Yeah, I mean, just getting a little bit more explosive, more so. I didn't see a ton of every-day work that she was doing in Tenerife, but what I've seen of her doing what she's doing here, a lot of resistant band work, and I think that's really good for her. You see the long bands that players wear around their waist, and she's doing the resistance work, and for me that was just like, yes! Because I know as a player, I'm tall, and Kaja is much taller than me. So it's getting the center of gravity a little bit lower on her ground strokes and getting forward a little bit more. And so when you have a resistance band on you and doing those types of things, it makes you get lower without you realizing it because you can't stand up high when you've got a resistance band against you, because you're going to fall over. You're going to get pulled back.

So for her it's getting lower and realizing she can move a little more efficiently and a little bit more aggressively. But for somebody of her height, she actually moves quite well, and she anticipates really well. So, like I said, I haven't seen everything that she's done, but just that in itself yesterday, I was like I was so happy.

So you don't want to tell the fitness trainer what to do, but you want to be collaborative of what you see that they can do better on the court, and if he can transfer that onto the fitness, and I know he's very experienced with working with tennis players, so what I saw yesterday was great. So I'm really happy with that.

Q. Have you guys talked at all about post January?
RENNAE STUBBS: Yeah. You know, we have our schedule set. I'm going to the Middle East with her and Indian Wells and Miami, and then Paris. And then the rest of that hard court season will be Conchita, because, again, I'm going to be really busy at Wimbledon and the US Open Series and the US Open with ESPN.

So, again, it's kind of nice that she gets the different personalities with Conchi and I, and Conchi works a lot on her feet and her fast hands and things like that, because that's really what Conchi did so well. And I'm a little bit more transitional work, coming into the net, serve. So she's got sort of the best of both worlds, like working on the things to make her better, so I think she enjoys that, too, just hearing a different voice, because hearing the same person over and over again telling you the same thing gets kind of monotonous and boring. And Kaja is that type of person that gets tired of the same voice.

So it's nice, I think for her. I don't know, she's probably better to ask that question to, if it's nice for her to have a different outlook from our personalities, but the one thing that we definitely are very hard on her about is, I mean, we -- Conchi and I will go to run for a ball in practice more than she will sometimes, and we're like, why are we wanting to run for that ball more than you?

So we're very passionate. I'm very passionate. Conchi is very passionate about the sport and about practicing and about working hard, and so we hope that that transfers to her, because she's a little bit sort of like, you know, not really that human being. So to give her that passion for the sport and winning and playing will be really nice, because she's such a good kid, as you know.

Q. Is it okay to ask you the non-Karolina questions?
RENNAE STUBBS: I don't know. Is it? Sure. Go ahead.

Q. I mean you travel so much and see so much. The young Australian women, from Sam at 70-odd and Priscilla Hon, 150-odd and further down the rankings than that.
RENNAE STUBBS: You forgot about Ash Barty. She's not bad.

Q. Yeah, yeah. But that sort of younger group. Any observations you care to make on any of those, where they're at?
RENNAE STUBBS: Well, I mean it's a hard sport. I mean, every country is playing. I mean, so for the Aussies, traveling is a really hard thing where you have to spend a lot of time on the road, and the only good thing about being from Australia is, first of all, Australia, it's great. But it's a hard slug for the Aussies. Unless you're really traveling and buying a house internationally, you're going to have to come back here and forth, and it's expensive. So these guys they have to start doing better at these events, and they have to start winning matches, and players like Priscilla have to start having success on the WTA Tour to sort of afford being able to travel.

And you've got a lot of competition out there. You just have to walk around and see how good the players are now. I mean, there's a thousand players out there that play as well as our girls do, and you have to sit yourself above that. You know, what Ashleigh has been able to do over the last couple of years is fantastic. But look what it did for Ash. She had burned out at 17. So she realized that to do really well she had to be on the road a lot and be away from her family and put a lot of work in, and it's not easy.

Some of these young Aussie girls have to really commit to doing this full time and really work hard and really work harder than everybody else. So for me, I can't really give you an exact, because I'm not with them, so I don't know what they're doing. Are they working hard enough? I assume they are. If they're not, then they just have to look around to see what everyone else is doing around them. So these players are working hard; they're professional, and so that's the commitment that they have to make, especially as Australians, because the travel is brutal.

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